UC-NRLF 


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^   ^    ,-.     .:  " 


University  of  California. 

FROM    THK    LIBRARY    OK 

i)  R  .     F  R  A  N  C  I  S     L  1  E  B  E  R , 

Professor  of  History  and  Ln\v  in  Columbia  College,  New  York. 


THK   GIFT   OF 

MICHAEL    REESE, 

Of  Sati  Francisco. 

1ST  3. 


THE    PILGRIM 


IN    THE    SHADOW 


OF  THE   JUNGFRAU  ALP. 


BY 


GEORGE  B.   CHEEVER,  U.D. 


And  when  I  grieve,  O  rather  let  it  be 

That  I — whom  Nature  taught  to  sit  with  her, 

On  her  proud  mountains,  by  her  rolling  sea  ; — 

Who,  when  the  winds  are  up,  with  mighty  stir 

Of  woods  and  waters — feel  the  quickening  spur 

To  my  strong  spirit ;— who,  as  mine  own  child, 

Do  love  the  flower,  and  in  the  ragged  bur 

A  beauty  see ;— that  I  this  mother  mild 

Should  leave,  and  go  with  care  and  passions  fierce  and  wild. 

DANA 


NEW-YORK: 
WILEY    &   PUTNAM,    161    BROADWAY. 

1846. 


ENTERED  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1845,  by 

WILEY  &  PUTNAM, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New-York. 


R.  CRAIQHEAD'B  Power  Press, 
112  Fulton  Street 


T.  B.   SMITH,  Stereotyper, 
216  William  Street 


RICHARD   H.   DANA,    ESQ., 

THE   POET   OF    "  DAYBREAK," 
THIS    VOLUME    IS   MOST    RESPECTFULLY 

AND   AFFECTIONATELY   INSCRIBED, 

BY   HIS    GRATEFUL   FRIEND, 

THE  AUTHOR. 


PREFACE. 


I  WISH  all  my  readers  a  merry  Christmas  and  a  happy 
New  Year.  May  their  holidays  be  graced  with  good 
cheer,  and  what  is  infinitely  better,  may  the  grace  of  Him, 
whose  love  gives  us  our  true  holidays,  make  every  heart  a 
temple  of  gratitude  and  holy  joy.  A  Pilgrim  may  wander 
all  over  the  earth,  and  find  no  spot  in  the  world,  where  men 
are~Tx)und  to  God  by  so  many  ties  of  mercy,  as  we  are  in 
our  own  dear  native  country,  or  where  old  and  young, 
rich  and  poor,  have  so  much  cause  for  heartfelt  rejoicing. 

Therefore,  an  American,  wherever  he  goes  in  the  world, 
should  go  with  the  feeling  that  his  own  country  is  the  best 
in  the  world.  Not  as  a  proud  feeling,  let  him  carry  it,  but 
a  gentle  one,  a  quiet  feeling  behind  all  other  moods  and 
varieties  of  thought,  like  the  sense  of  domestic  happiness, 
which  makes  a  man  sure  that  his  own  home  is  the  sweetest 
of  all  homes.  So,  wherever  an  American  goes,  the  image 
of  his  country,  like  a  lake  among  the  mountains,  should,  as 
a  mirror,  receive  and  reflect  the  world's  surrounding  im- 
agery. He  should  see  all  other  countries  in  the  light  of 
his  own. 

The  first  time  I  left  America  for  Europe,  the  last  word 
said  to  me  by  Mr.  Dana  (to  whom  I  have  taken  the  liberty 
of  inscribing  this  volume,  though  I  doubt  not  there  are 
some  things  in  it  which  will  displease  him),  was  this  :  See 


via'  PREFACE. 


all  that  you  can  see.  A  good,  rule  for  a  traveller,  to  whom 
things  that  he  has  neglected  seeing,  always  seem  very  im- 
portant to  him  after  he  has  got  beyond  their  reach,  though 
while  he  was  by  them  they  seemed  unimportant.  But  a 
man  should  not  look  upon  external  shows  or  ostentations 
merely,  but  at  men's  habits  of  thought  and  action,  as  they 
have  grown  in  the  atmosphere  of  surrounding  institutions. 
So  Mr.  Dana  would  doubtless  add  to  his  advice  the  maxim 
that  a  man  should  say  just  what  he  thinks  of  what  he  sees, 
and  not  be  frightened  by  the  weird  sisters  of  criticism. 
Among  all  classes  there  will  be  found  here  and  there  a 
frank,  free,  gentle-hearted  critic,  with  the  milk  of  human 
kindness  and  indulgence  for  another's  prejudices ;  though 
there  be  some,  who  will  accuse  a  man  of  bigotry,  when- 
ever he  says  anything  that  does  not  square  exactly  with 
their  own  religious  views.  But  if  a  man  tries  to  please 
everybody,  there  is  a  fable  waiting  for  him,  of  which  it  is 
a  sorry  thing  to  experience  the  moral,  instead  of  being 
warned  by  it.  We  do  love  the  good  old  New  England 
privilege  of  speaking  one's  mind. 

As  this  book  of  the  Jungfrau  will  probably  be  bound  up, 
if  any  think  it  worthy  of  a  binding,  with  the  other  of  Mont 
Blanc,  I  may  say  of  both,  that  if  I  had  been  intending  to 
make  a  regular  book  of  travel,  with  statistical  information, 
political  speculation,  records  of  men's  Babel-towers,  and 
-  all  the  ambitious  shows  of  cities,  I  should  have  made  a 
very  different  work  indeed.  But  there  are  so  many  more 
books  in  the  world  of  that  sort,  than  of  this  pilgrimage 
kind,  that  I  have  preferred  to  go  quietly,  as  far  as  possible, 
hand  in  hand  with  Nature,  finding  quiet  lessons.  So,  if 
you  choose,  you  may  call  the  book  a  collection  of  Sea- 
weed ;  and  if  there  were  a  single  page  into  which  there 


PREFACE. 


had  drifted  something  worthy  of  preservation,  according 
to  that  fine  poem  of  Longfellow,  I  should  be  very  glad ; — 
anything,  whether  from  my  own  mind,  or  the  minds  of 
others,  that  otherwise  would  still  have  floated  at  random. 
There  are  many  such  things  ungathered,  for  the  waves  are 
always  detaching  them  from  the  hidden  reefs  of  thought  in 
our  immortal  being,  and  tossing  them  over  the  ocean. 

"  Ever  drifting,  drifting,  drifting, 

On  the  shifting 
Currents  of  the  restless  heart ; 
Till  at  length  in  books  recorded, 

They,  like  hoarded 
Household  words,  no  more  depart." 

The  reader  will  find,  in  our  two  pilgrimages,  a  rehearsal, 
if  I  may  so  speak,  of  most  of  the  noted  passes  of  Switzer- 
land, and  of  the  wonders  of  some,  that  are  not  usually 
threaded  by  travellers.  We  have  passed  amidst  the  mag- 
nificence and  sublimity  of  Chamouny  in  the  face  of  Mont 
Blanc,  have  crossed  the  Col  de  Balme  with  its  sights  of 
glory,  and  the  pass  of  the  Tete  Noire,  with  the  hospitable 
Grand  St.  Bernard,  the  sunset  splendors  of  the  Vale  of 
Courmayeur,  the  stormy  Col  de  Bonhomme,  and  the  glit- 
tering icebergs  of  the  Allee  Blanche.  Now  we  climb  the 
wondrous  Gemmi,  and  in  the  face  of  the  Jungfrau  march 
across  the  sublime  pass  of  the  Wengern  Alp,  by  the 
thunder  of  the  Avalanches,  then  over  the  Grand  Scheideck, 
the  gloomy  and  terrible  Grimsel,  the  pass  of  the  Furca,  the 
romantic  St.  Gothard,  the  sky-gazing  brow  of  the  Righi, 
the  Wallenstadt  passes,  and  last  and  grandest  of  all,  the 
amazing  pass  of  the  Splugen.  And  as  we  go,  we  visit  the 
great  glaciers  and  cataracts,  shining  and  roaring,  and  the 
infant  cradles  of  some  of  the  largest  rivers  in  Europe,  and 


PREFACE. 


the  most  romantic  lakes  in  the  world,  and  many  a  won- 
drous scene  besides.  We  go  moralizing,  all  the  way, 
not  at  all  unwilling  to  be  accused,  sometimes,  of  discourses 
upon  our  icy  texts,  and  wishing  to  make  a  volume  more 
of  thoughts  than  things.  I  beg  those  who  do  not  like  them, 
to  remember  that  there  may  be  those  also,  who  will  think 
they  are  the  best  parts  of  the  book. 

I  somewhat  regret  not  having  incorporated  into  this 
volume  my  early  visit  to  Italy  through  the  Pass  of  the 
Simplon,  but  this  deficiency  will  be  more  than  made  up  in 
the  excellent  book  of  Mr.  Headley  on  the  Alps  and  Rhine, 
to  which  I  heartily  commend  the  reader. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Introduction.     The  serious  side  of  travel 1 

II.  Lake  Leman.     Entrance  on  the  Valley  of  the  Rhine 7 

III.  Ecclesiastical  despotism  in  the  Valais.     Measures  of  the 

Jesuits 13 

IV.  Physical  Plagues  of  the  Canton  du  Valais  and  of  Switzerland. 

Hospital  for  the  Cretins 18 

V.  Gorge  of  the  Dala 24 

VI.  Elements  of  the  landscape.      Alpine   Flowers.      Jonathan 

Edwards 27 

VII.  The  Moon  and  the  Mountains.   Village  of  Leuk SO 

VIII.  Baths  of  Leuk 34 

IX.  Pass  of  the  Gemmi.     Trials  of  Faith 35 

X.  Pass  of  the  Gemmi.     Successive  splendors  of  the  view. . ..  39* 

XI.  Canton  Berne.     Scripture  on   the  houses.     Truth  a  good  . 

talisman 45 

XII.  Picturesque  cottages.     A  picturesque  language.     Right   and 

unright  innovation 48 

XIII.  Kandersteg.    Frutigen.     The  Blumlis  Alp.     Lake  and  Vil- 

lage of  Thun 53 

XIV.  Thun  to  Interlachen.     Interlachen  to  Lauterbrunnen.     Bi- 

ble in  Schools 57 

XV.  Staubach  Cascade  and  Vale  of  Lauterbrunnen 62 

XVI.  The  Wengern  Alp  and  morning  landscape  and  music 66 

XVII.  The  Jungfrau  Alp  and  its  Avalanches 70 

XVIII.  Mortar-avalanches.     Valley  and  glaciers  of  Grindlewald ....  74 

XIX.  Pass  of  the  Grand  Scheideck  to  Meyringen 80 

XX.  Glacier  of  Rosenlani  and  Falls  of  the  Reichenbach 84 

XXI.  Twilight,  Evening,  and  Night  in  Switzerland.     A  Sabbath 

in  Meyringen 87 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXII.  From  Meyringen  to  the  Pass  of  the  Grimsel 92 

XXIII.  Upper  Hasli  and  the  river  Aar.     Falls  of  the  Aar.    Deso- 

lation of  the  Pass 96 

XXIV.  Hospice  of  the  Grimsel.     Glaciers  of  the  Aar 100 

XXV.  Lake  of  the  Dead.    Glacier  of  the  Rhone.    Pass  of  the  Furca  104 
XXVI.  The  Devil's  Bridge.     Savage  defiles  of  the  Reuss 108 

XXVII.  Legends  of  the  pass.     Cowper's  Memoria  Technica 112 

XXVIII.  Associations.     Canton  Uri,  and  the  Memoirs  of  Tell 116 

XXIX.  Traditions  of  Freedom.    Religious  liberty  the  garrison  of 

civil . 120  " 

XXX.  Lake  of  Uri  and  town  of  Lucerne 128 

XXXI.  Ascent  of  the  Righi.     Extraordinary  glory  of  the  view..  133 
XXXII.  Lucerne  to  Einsiedeln.     Dr.  Zay's  history  of  the  Rossberg 

Avalanche 143 

XXXIII.  Morgarten,  Sempach,  and  Arnold  of  Winkelried 149 

XXXIV.  Pilgrimage  of  Einsiedeln  and  worship  of  the  Virgin 152 

XXXV.  Zurich  and  Zwingle.     Banishment  of  Protestants  from  Lo- 
carno     160 

XXXVI.  Scenery  on  the   Lake   of  Zurich.      Poetry  for  Pilgrims. 

Grandeur  of  the  Lake  of  Wallenstadt 166 

XXXVII.  Baths  of  Pfeffers.     Gorge  of  the  Tamina.     Coire  and  the 

Grisons 171 

XXXVIII.  Course  of  the  Rhine.     Louis  Philippe.     The  Royal  School- 
master at  Reichenau.     Reichenau  to  Thusis 175 

XXXIX.  Terrific   Grandeur   of  the   Splugen.      The   VIA  MALA. 

Creation  as  a  Teacher  of  God 179 

XL.  Natural  Theology  of  the  Splugen 185 

XLI    Pass  of  the  Splugen  into  Italy.     The  Cardinell  and  Mac- 

donald's  Army.     Campo  Dolcino  and  Chiavenna 188 

XLII.  The  Buried  Town  of  Pleurs 194 

XLIII.  Beauty  of  the  Lake  of  Como.     Como  to  Milan.     Leonar- 
do da  Vinci 199 

XLIV.  The  Cathedral  of  Milan.     The  Gospel  in  Italy 203 

XLV.  Silvio  Pellico,  and  the  Bible  in  Italy 208 

XLVI.  The  Farewell.     Swiss  character  and  freedom 211 


THE  PILGRIM 


SHADOW  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU. 

* 

CHAPTER  I. 

Introduction.     The  serious  side  of  travel. 

HAIL  to  the  Oberland  Alps  !  As  Mont  Blanc  is  the  Monarch 
of  Mountains  in  all  Switzerland,  so  the  Jungfrau  is  the  Maiden 
Queen,  with  her  dazzling  coronet  of  sky- piercing  crystal  crags 
for  ever  dropping  from  their  setting,  and  her  icy  sceptre,  and  her 
robe  of  glaciers,  with  its  fathomless  fringe  of  snow.  She  too  is 
"  Earth's  rosy  Star,"  so  beautiful,  so  glorious,  that  to  have  seen 
her  light,  if  a  man  had  leisure,  would  be  worth  a  pilgrimage 
round  the  world.  To  have  heard  her  voice,  deep  thunder  with- 
out cloud,  breaking  the  eternal  stillness  in  the  clear  serene  of 
heaven,  and  to  have  beheld  her,  shaking  from  her  brow  its  rest- 
less battlements  of  avalanches,  were  an  event  in  one's  life,  from 
which  to  calculate  the  longitudes  of  years. 

But  how  can  any  man  who  has  seen  this  describe  it?  To 
think  of  doing  this  perfectly,  is  indeed  perfectly  hopeless ;  and 
yet  any  man  may  tell  how  it  affected  him.  A  celebrated  treatise 
on  self-knowledge  has  the  following  curious  intellectual  recipe  : 
"  Accustom  yourself  to  speak  naturally,  pertinently,  and  ration- 
ally on  all  subjects,  and  you  will  soon  learn  to  think  so  on  the 
best."  This  is  somewhat  as  if  a  man  should  say,  Learn  to  float 
well  in  all  seas,  and  you  will  be  able  to  swim  in  fresh-water 
rivers.  But  a  man  may  both  have  learned  to  think  and  to  speak, 
naturally,  pertinently,  and  rationally,  if  not  on  all  subjects,  yet 
on  some,  and  still  may  find  himself  put  to  shame  by  a  snow- 

PART  n.  2 


2  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  i. 

covered  mountain  in  the  setting  day,  or  beneath  "  the  keen  full 
moon." 

In  attempting  to  paint  scenery  by  words,  you  are  conscious  of 
the  imperfection  of  language,  which,  being  a  creation  of  the 
mind,  is  by  no  means  of  so  easy  use,  skilfully  and  accurately, 
in  delineating  form,  as  in  conveying  thought.  I  am  reminded 
of  the  curious  experience  related  bjr  Coleridge.  "  Some  folks," 
he  says,  "  apply  epithets  as  boys  do  in  making  Latin  verses. 
When  I  first  looked  upon  the  Falls  of  the  Clyde,  I  was  unable  to 
find  a  word  to  express  my  feelings.  At  last  a  man,  a  stranger  to 
me,*  who  arrived  about  the  same  time,  said — 'How  majestic!' 
It  was  the  precise  term,  and  I  turned  round  and  was  saying — 
1  Thank  you,  sir,  that  is  the  exact  word  for  it,'  when  he  added  in 
the  same  breath,  <  Yes,  how  very  pretty  /' ' 

It  is  easier  to  tell  how  nature  affects  the  heart  and  mind,  than 
to  describe  nature  worthily ;  and  the  passages  in  our  favorite 
poets,  which  go  down  deepest  into  the  heart,  and  are  kept  as 
odorous  gums  or  bits  of  musk  amidst  our  common  thoughts,  are 
those  which  express,  not  the  features,  so  much  as  the  voice  of 
nature,  and  the  feelings  wakened  by  it,  and  the  answering  tones 
from  the  Harp  of  Immortality  within  our  own  souls.  It  is  much 
easier  for  the  Imagination  to  create  a  fine  picture,  than  for  the 
mind  to  draw  a  real  picture  with  power  of  Imagination  ;  for  the 
soul  works  more  feelingly  and  intensely  in  the  Ideal,  than  the 
accurate  senses  report  ideally  in  the  actual.  What  an  exquisite 
picture  has  the  sensitive,  sad  genius  of  Henry  Kirke  White  drawn 
of  a  Gothic  tomb !  Had  he  been  to  copy  it  from  some  fine  old 
church-yard  or  cathedral,  it  would  not  have  been  half  so  affect- 
ing, so  powerful. 

"  Lay  me  in  the  Gothic  tomb, 
In  whose  solemn  fretted  gloom 
I  may  lie  in  mouldering  state, 
With  all  the  grandeur  of  the  great : 
Over  me,  magnificent, 
Carve  a  stately  monument : 
Then  thereon  my  statue  lay, 
With  hands  in  attitude  to  pray, 
And  angels  serve  to  hold  my  head, 
Weeping  o'er  the  marble  dead." 


CHAP,  i.]  THE  SOUL  IN  NATURE.  3 

How,  then,  says  the  authoress  of  some  very  beautiful  letters 
to  a  Mother  from  abroad,  speaking  of  the  land  of  Tell,  over 
which  we  are  about  to  wander,  "  How  then  can  I  describe,  for 
there  I  could  only  feel?  And  in  truth,  the  country  is  so  beauti- 
ful and  sublime,  that  I  believe,  had  Schiller  seen  it,  he  would 
have  feared  endeavoring  to  embody  it  in  his  immortal  play. 
How  courageous  is  imagination  !  And  is  it  not  well  that  it  is  so, 
for  how  much  should  we  lose,  even  of  the  real,  if  the  Poet  drew 
only  from  reality !" 

There  is  profound  truth  in  this.  And  hence  one  of  those 
homely  and  admirable  observations,  which,  amidst  gems  of  poe- 
try, Coleridge  was  always  dropping  in  conversation,  as  fast  as  a 
musician  scatters  sounds  out  of  an  instrument.  "  A  poet,"  said 
he,  "  ought  not  to  pick  nature's  pocket :  let  him  borrow,  and  so 
borrow,  as  to  repay  by  the  very  act  of  borrowing.  Examine  na- 
ture accurately,  but  write  from  recollection ;  and  trust  more  to  ; 
your  imagination  than  to  your  memory." 

And  yet,  how  many  are  the  books  of  Travellers,  who  have 
gone  among  the  finest  scenes  of  nature,  and  given  us  free  and 
careless  pictures  and  incidents,  lively  stones,  anecdotes,  the  talk 
of  men,  the  wayward  etchings  of  wild  life  and  manners,  but  have 
made  no  attempt  whatever  to  connect  with  nature  the  eternal 
feeling  and  conscience  of  the  soul.  Perhaps  they  would  call 
this  sermonizing;  as  Charles  Lamb  once  playfully  translated 
one  of  Coleridge's  mottos,  sermoni  propriora,  properer  for  a  ser- 
mon !  But  unless  we  travel  with  something  in  our  hearts  higher 
than  the  forms  of  earth,  and  a  voice  to  speak  of  it,  to  report  it, 
"  little  do  we  see  in  nature  that  is  ours."  And  we  bring  our- 
selves under  the  Poet's  condemnation  : 

"  Whose  mind  is  but  the  mind  of  his  own  eyes, 
He  is  a  slave,  the  meanest  we  can  meet.5* 

Therefore,  if  any  reader  thinketh  that  he  finds  things  "  pro- 
perer for  a  sermon  "  in  our  little  picture  of  a  pilgrimage,  we 
pray  him  to  remember,  that  the  sermons  in  stones  are  precisely 
the  things  in  nature  most  generally  overlooked  ;  and  we  only 
wish  that  we  had  more  of  them  and  better  reported.  For  mere 


4  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  ICHAP.  i, 

pictures,  ever  so  beautiful,  are  scarce  worth  travelling  so  far  to 
see,  except  we  link  their  sacred  lessons  to  our  inner  selves. 
Many  of  Wordsworth's  sonnets  are  gems  beyond  all  price,  be- 
cause they  embalm  rich  moral  sentiments,  like  apples  of  gold  in 
pictures  of  silver :  and  in  his  own  words, 

"  The  Grove,  the  sky-built  Temple,  and  the  Dome, 
Though  clad  in  colors  beautiful  and  pure, 
Find  in  the  heart  of  man  no  natural  home : 
The  immortal  mind  craves  objects  that  endure." 

And  it  ought  to  have  them,  it  ought  to  be  accustomed  to  them ; 
every  man  ought  to  endeavor  to  present  them  to  his  fellow-man. 
And  indeed  how  can  a  man  go  about  the  whole  circle  of  our 
humanity,  copying  everywhere  the  hieroglyphics  on  its  external 
temple,  and  yet  elude  all  serious  reference*  to  our  Immortality 
and  Accountability  ?  Say  that  these  things  will  make  his  book 
less  popular ;  why  wish  to  make  it  popular,  and  not  endeavor  at 
the  same  time  to  make  it  useful  ?  "  Whole  centuries,"  says 
Schiller,  "  have  shown  philosophers  as  well  as  artists  busied  in 
immersing  truth  and  beauty  in  the  depths  of  a  vulgar  humanity  ; 
the  former  sink,  but  the  latter  struggles  up  victoriously,  in  her 
own  indestructible  energy." 

How  noble  is  that  maxim  of  Schiller,  how  worthy  of  all  en- 
deavor to  fulfil  it : — "  Live  with  your  century,  but  be  not  its 
creature ;  bestow  upon  your  contemporaries  not  what  they  praise, 
but  what  they  need." 

The  tendency  of  travel,  in  our  day,  is  strong  towards  habits 
of  outwardness,  and  forgetfulness  of  that  which  is  inward.  The 
world  is  in  two  great  moving  currents,  each  looking  at  the  other 
as  its  spectacle,  its  show,  its  theatrical  amusement.  A  book  must 
be  a  comedy ;  there  is  scarce  such  a  thing  possible  as  serious 
meditation.  The  world  are  divided  between  living  for  what 
other  people  will  say  of  them,  and  living  to  see  how  other  people 
live.  Certes,  this  is  an  evil  habit,  and  every  record  of  external 
shows,  that  does  not  lead  the  mind  to  better  things,  tends  to  con- 
solidate and  fasten  the  world's  incurable  worldliness.  Thus,  the 
more  a  man  knows  of  other  things,  the  less  he  may  know  of  his 
own  being ;  and  the  more  he  lives  upon  the  food  of  amusement, 


CHAP,  i.]  THE  SOUL  IN  NATURE.  5 

the  less  power  will  the  Word  of  God,  and  those  trains  of  thought 
that  spring  from  it,  and  direct  the  mind  to  it,  have  over  him. 
"iWe  know  ourselves  least/'  says  Dr.  Donne, 

"  We  know  ourselves  least ;  mere  outward  shows 

Our  minds  so  store, 

That  our  souls,  no  more  than  our  eyes,  disclose 
But  form  and  color.     Only  he,  who  knows 
Himself,  knows  more." 

So  then  we  will  remember,  while  wandering  amidst  form  and 
color,  that  we  ourselves  are  not  mere  form  and  color ;  that  while 
all  we  look  on  and  admire  is  transitory  and  changing,  we  our- 
selves are  eternal ;  and  we  are  gathering  an  eternal  hue,  even 
from  the  colors  that  are  temporal.  Amidst  the  wreck  of  is  and 
was,  we  will  be  mindful  that  "  His  finger  is  upon  us,  who  is  the 
same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for  ever." 

Most  strikingly  does  John  Foster  remark  that  "  A  man  may 
have  lived  almost  an  age,  and  traversed  a  continent,  minutely 
examining  its  curiosities,  and  interpreting  the  half  obliterated 
characters  on  its  monuments,  unconscious  the  while  of  a  process 
operating  on  his  own  mind  to  impress  or  to  erase  characteristics 
of  much  more  importance  to  him,  than  all  the  figured  brass  or 
marble  that  Europe  contains.  After  having  explored  many  a 
cavern,  or  dark  ruinous  avenue,  he  may  have  left  undetected  a 
darker  recess  in  his  character.  He  may  have  conversed  with 
many  people,  in  different  languages,  on  numberless  subjects; 
but  having  neglected  those  conversations  with  himself,  by  which 
his  whole  moral  being  should  have  been  continually  disclosed  to 
his  view,  he  is  better  qualified  perhaps  to  describe  the  intrigues 
of  a  foreign  court,  or  the  progress  of  a  foreign  trader ;  to  repre- 
sent the  manners  of  the  Italians  or  the  Turks ;  to  narrate  the 
proceedings  of  the  Jesuits  or  the  adventures  of  the  gypsies;  than 
to  write  the  history  of  his  own  mind." 

I  have  no  need  of  an  apology  for  this  quotation,  and  I  may 
add  one  short  word  more,  from  the  same  great  writer,  before  we 
take  our  Alpenstock  in  hand,  as  a  prelude,  or  grand  opening 
symphony,  to  the  solemn  beauty  of  which  sound  we  may  step 
across  the  threshold  of  the  great  Temple  we  are  entering. 


6  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  i. 

"  This  fair  display  of  the  Creator's  works  and  resources  will  be 
gratifying,  the  most  and  the  latest,  to  the  soul  animated  with  the 
love  of  God,  and  the  confidence  of  soon  entering  on  a  nobler 
scene.  Let  me,  he  may  say,  look  once  more  at  what  my  Divine 
Father  has  diffused  even  hither,  as  a  faint  intimation  of  what  he 
has  somewhere  else.  I  am  pleased  with  this,  as  a  distant  out- 
skirt,  as  it  were,  of  the  Paradise  toward  which  I  am  going." 

Yes !  the  Paradise  towards  which  we  are  going  !  The  trees 
of  Life,  the  River  of  the  Water  of  Life,  the  City  of  God,  the 
streets  of  gold,  the  walls  of  jasper,  the  gates  of  pearl,  and  the  Lord 
God  Almighty  and  the  Lamb  for  the  Temple  of  it ;  no  night,  nor 
storm,  nor  darkness,  nor  need  of  sun  nor  moon,  for  the  glory  of 
God  doth  lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is  the  Light  thereof. 
Jerusalem!  Jerusalem! 


CHAP,  ii.]  SETTING  OUT. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Lake  Leman.     Entrance  on  the  Valley  of  the  Rhone. 

IT  must  be  of  a  Monday  morning,  in  August,  in  delightful  wea- 
ther, that  you  set  out  with  me  from  Geneva,  on  a  pedestrian  tour 
through  the  Oberland  Alps,  which  may  perhaps  be  closed  with 
the  grand  pass  of  the  Splugen,  and  a  march  through  the  North 
of  Italy,  into  the  secluded  valleys  of  the  Waldenses.  But  as  we 
cannot  walk  across  the  Lake,  our  pedestrianizing  begins  by  sail- 
ing in  a  crowded  steamer,  on  board  which  we  probably  find  a 
number  of  just  such  travellers  as  ourselves,  accoutred  with  knap- 
sacks and  stout  iron-soled  shoes,  and  perhaps  a  blouse  and  an 
Alpenstock,  determined  on  meeting  dangers,  and  discovering  wild 
scenes,  such  as  no  other  traveller  has  encountered.  I  was  happy 
in  having  for  a  companion  and  friend  an  English  gentleman  and 
a  Christian.  For  this  cause,  our  communion  had  no  undercur- 
rent of  distrust  or  difference,  and  we  could  sympathize  in  each 
other's  most  sacred  feelings,  although  he  was  a  Churchman  and 
a  Monarchist,  while  I  belonged  to  the  Church  with  the  primitive 
Bishop,  and  the  State  without  a  King. 

By  the  way,  that  word  Churchman  is  a  singular  appellation 
for  a  Christian.  It  seems  to  be  taking  the  species  instead  of  the 
genus  for  designation,  and  it  reminds  me  of  the  saying,  "  Israel 
hath  forgotten  his  Maker,  and  buildeth  Temples."  It  is  a  pity  to 
put  the  less  for  the  greater.  We  are  all  Churchmen,  of  course, 
if  we  be  Christ's  men,  but  we  may  be  furious  Churchmen,  in 
any  denomination,  without  being  Christ's  men  at  all. 

We  started  at  half  past  eight  for  Villeneuve,  at  the  other  end 
of  the  Lake,  and  the  day  being  very  lovely,  we  had  a  most  en- 
chanting sail.  A  conversation  with  some  Romish  Priests  on  board 
was  productive  of  some  little  interest.  They  defended  their 
Church  with  great  earnestness  against  the  charge  of  saint  and 


8  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  n. 

image  worship,  which  we  dwelt  upon.  Then  we  compared  our 
different  pronunciation  of  Latin,  repeating  the  Quadrupedanle 
putrem,  et  cetera,  for  illustration.  They  knew  nothing  about 
Greek,  and  of  course  had  never  examined  the  New  Testament  in 
the  original. 

The  end  of  Lake  Leman  near  Vevay  and  Villeneuve  can 
scarcely  be  exceeded  in  beauty  by  any  of  the  lakes  in  Switzer- 
land. It  very  much  resembles  the  Lake  of  Lucerne.  The  finest 
portion  of  Lake  George  looks  like  it,  except  that  the  mountains 
which  enclose  and  border  the  Lake  of  Geneva  beyond  Vevay  are 
vastly  higher  and  more  sublime  than  any  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  American  lakes.  To  see  the  full  beauty  of  the  Lake  of 
Geneva,  the  traveller  must  be  upon  the  summit  of  the  Jura  moun- 
tains in  a  clear  day ;  then  he  sees  it  in  its  grand  and  mighty  set- 
ting, as  a  sea  of  pearl  amidst  crags  of  diamonds ;  coming  from 
France,  the  scene  bursts  upon  him  like  a  world  in  heaven.  But 
if  in  fine  weather  sailing  toward  Villeneuve,  he  have  a  view,  as 
we  did,  of  the  Grand  St.  Bernard,  magnificently  robed  with  snow, 
he  will  think  also  that  the  sublimity  and  beauty  of  this  scene,  and 
of  the  Lake  itself,  can  scarcely  be  exceeded. 

The  Lake,  you  are  aware,  is  the  largest  in  Switzerland,  being 
at  least  fifty  miles  in  length,  a  magnificent  crystal  mirror  for 
the  stars  and  mountains,  where  even  Mont  Blanc,  though  sixty 
miles  away,  can  see  his  broad  glittering  diadem  of  snow  and  ice 
reflected  in  clear  weather.  How  beautifully  Lord  Byron  has 
described  the  lake  in  its  various  moods,  and  the  lovely  scenery, 
connected  with  a  sense  of  its  moral  lessons  calling  him  away 
from  evil,  like  a  sister's  voice,  Brother,  come  home !  Ah,  if  the 
Poet  had  but  followed  those  better  impulses,  which  sweet  nature 
sometimes  with  her  simple  sermons  awakened  in  his  soul ! 

"  Clear,  placid  Leman  !  thy  contrasted  lake, 
With  the  wild  world  I  dwelt  in,  is  a  thing, 
Which  warns  me  with  its  stillness  to  forsake 
Earth's  troubled  waters  for  a  purer  spring  ! 
This  quiet  sail  is  as  a  noiseless  wing  * 

To  waft  me  from  destruction  ;  once  I  loved 
Torn  ocean's  roar ;  but  thy  soft  murmuring 
Sounds  sweet  as  if  a  Sister's  voice  reproved 
That  I  with  stern  delights  should  e'er  have  been  so  moved." 


CHAP,  ii.]  THE  RHONE  IN  THE  LAKE.  0 

The  lesson  of  the  quiet  sail  is  lost  on  board  the  anxious  steamer 
with  her  noisy  paddles ;  but  any  traveller  may  enjoy  it,  if  he 
will  take  the  time,  and  few  things  in  nature  can  be  more  lovely 
than  a  sail  or  a  walk  along  the  Lake  of  Geneva  in  some  of  its 
exquisite  sunsets.  Meditation  there  "  may  think  down  hours  to 
moments,"  and  there  is  something  both  solemn  and  melancholy, 
in  the  fall  of  the  curtain  of  evening  over  such  a  scene,  which 
quickens  the  inward  sense  of  one's  immortality  and  accountability, 
and  irresistibly  carries  the  heart  up  to  God  in  prayer. 

Our  boat  lands  her  passengers  in  small  lighters  at  Villeneuve, 
where  we  take  a  diligence  for  St.  Maurice,  some  three  hours' 
drive  up  the  Valley  of  the  Rhone.  The  river  runs  into  the  Lake 
at  Villeneuve,  and  out  of  it  at  Geneva ;  though  why  the  radiant 
sparkling  stream,  that  issues  with  such  swiftness  and  beauty, 
should  bear  the  same  name  with  the  torrent  of  mud  that  rolls  into 
it,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  Nevertheless,  a  Christian  bears  the  same 
name  after  his  conversion  that  he  did  before;  and  the  new  and 
beautiful  characteristics  of  this  river,  when  it  rushes  from  the 
lake  at  the  republican  and  Protestant  end  of  it,  might  well  re- 
mind you  of  the  change,  which  takes  place  between  the  charac- 
ter of  a  depraved  man,  and  a  regenerated  child  of  God.  Our 
hearts  come  down  wild  and  ferocious  from  the  mountains,  bear- 
ing with  them  rocks  and  mud,  casting  up,  as  the  Word  of  God 
saith,  mire  and  dirt.  So  are  we  in  our  native,  graceless  depravity. 
It  is  only  by  flowing  into  the  crystal  Lake  of  Divine  Love,  that 
we  leave  our  native  impurities  all  behind  us,  on  the  shore  of  the 
world,  and  then  when  we  reappear,  when  we  flow  forth  again 
from  this  blessed  Baptism,  we  are  like  the  azure,  arrowy  Rhone, 
reflecting  the  hues  of  heaven.  Then  again  the  muddy  Arve 
from  the  mountains  falls  into  us,  and  other  worldly  streams  join 
us,  so  that  before  we  get  to  the  sea  we  have,  alas,  too  often,  deep 
stains  still  of  the  mud  of  our  old  depravity.  The  first  Adam 
goes  with  us  to  the  sea,  though  much  veiled  and  hidden ;  but  the 
last  Adam  is  to  have  the  victory.  Some  streams  there  are,  how- 
ever, that  flow  all  the  way  from  the  Lake  to  the  Sea,  quite  clear 
and  unmingled.  The  course  of  such  a  regenerated  stream  through 
the  world  is  the  most  beautiful  sight  this  side  Heaven. 

The  immense  alluvial  deposit  from  the  Rhone,  where  it  pours 


10  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  n. 

into  the  Lake,  makes  the  valley  for -some  distance  from  Villeneuve 
a  dreary  bog,  which  every  year  is  usurping  something  more  of 
dominion ;  but  you  soon  get  into  wilder  scenery,  which  becomes 
extremely  beautiful  before  reaching  St.  Maurice.  Here  Mr. 
Rogers's  "  key  unlocks  a  kingdom,"  for  the  mountains  on  either 
side  so  nearly  shut  together,  that  there  is  only  the  width  of  the 
river  and  the  narrow  street  between  them.  You  cross  a  bridge 
upon  a  single  arch,  and  find  yourself  wondering  at  the  great 
strength  of  the  pass,  and  entering  a  village,  which  is  like  a  stone 
basket  hanging  to  a  perpendicular  wall.  Farther  on,  an  old  her- 
mitage high  up  overhangs  the  road,  like  a  grey  wasp's  nest,  under 
the  eaves  of  the  mountain.  Hereabouts  you  cross  a  vast  mound 
of  rock-rubbish,  made  up  of  the  ruins  of  one  of  the  various  ava- 
lanches which  from  time  to  time  bury  whole  fields  of  the  verdant 
Alpine  Valleys,  and  sometimes  whole  villages.  This  was  an 
avalanche  of  mud,  glacier,  granite,  and  gravel,  which  came  down 
from  the  lofty  summit  of  the  Dent  du  Midi  in  1835,  not  swiftly, 
but  like  thick  glowing  lava,  and  covered  the  valley  for  a  length 
of  nine  hundred  feet. 

At  St.  Maurice  you  pass  from  the  Canton  de  Vaud  to  the 
Romish  Canton  of  the  Valais,  a  transition  perceptible  at  once  in 
the  degradation  of  the  inhabitants.  We  took  a  char-d-lanc  from 
St.  Maurice  to  Martigny,  about  eleven  miles,  arriving  at  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  having  visited  the  superb  cascade  formerly 
called  the  Pissevache,  on  our  way.  It  only  wants  a  double  vol- 
ume of  water  to  make  it  sublime,  for  it  rolls  out  of  a  fissure  in 
the  mountain  three  hundred  feet  high,  and  makes  a  graceful 
spring,  clear  of  all  the  crags,  for  more  than  a  hundred  and  twenty 
feet,  and  then,  when  it  has  recovered,  so  to  speak,  from  the  fright 
of  such  a  fall,  runs  off  in  a  clear  little  river  to  join  the  muddy 
Rhone.  So,  sometimes,  a  youth  from  the  country,  who  had,  at 
first,  all  the  freshness  and  purity  of  home  and  of  a  mother's  love 
about  him,  gets  lost  in  the  corruption  of  a  great  city. 

Our  pedestrianizing  this  day,  you  perceive,  was  accomplished 
first  in  the  steamer,  second  in  the  diligence,  third  in  the  char-a- 
banc.  For  myself,  having  got  wet  by  a  furious  cloud  of  spray, 
which  the  wind  blew  over  me  as  I  advanced  too  near  under  the 
water- fall,  I  did  really  walk  the  greater  part  of  the  way  from 


CHAP,  ii.]  TOWER  AT  MARTIGNY.  11 

thence  to  Martigny,  about  four  miles,  leaving  my  friend  to  enjoy 
the  char-a-banc  alone,  and  to  order  our  supper  when  he  arrived 
at  the  inn.  This  char-d-banc,  so  much  used  in  Switzerland,  is  a 
hard  leathern  sofa  for  two,  or  at  most  three,  in  which  you  are 
placed  as  in  the  stocks,  and  trundled  sideways  upon  wheels.  It 
is  a  droll  machine,  somewhat  as  if  a  very  short  Broadway  omni- 
bus, being  split  in  two  lengthwise,  each  half,  provided  with  an 
additional  pair  of  wheels,  should  set  up  for  itself.  It  was  in  this 
conveyance  that  we  rode,  while  travelling  in  the  Canton  de  Va- 
lais,  for  no  one  would  dream  of  pedestrianizing  here,  unless 
indeed  along  the  sublime  pass  of  the  Simplon  between  Briegg  and 
Domodossola.  I  had  moreover  passed  through  the  Valley  of  the 
Rhone  before  into  Italy,  and  deferred  my  pedestrianizing  till  I 
should  come  upon  a  new  route  over  mountains  so  rough,  that  my 
companion  with  his  mule  could  go  no  faster  than  I  on  foot.  He 
preferred  to  ride  always  ;  I  chose  to  walk,  whenever  the  scenery 
was  sublime  enough  to  justify  it,  and  the  road  rough  enough  to 
make  it  agreeable. 

The  evening  at  Martigny  was  transcendently  beautiful,  the 
weather  being  fine,  the  atmosphere  wildly,  spiritually  bright,  and 
the  moon  within  one  night  of  her  fulness  ;  "  the  moon  above  the 
tops  of  the  snow-shining  mountains."  We  ascended  the  hill 
near  Martigny  to  the  picturesque  old  Feudal  Tower,  by  this 
moonlight,  and  rarely  in  my  wanderings  have  I  witnessed  a  scene 
to  be  compared  with  this.  Looking  down  the  valley,  the  outline 
is  bounded  by  a  snowy  ridge  of  great  beauty,  but  in  the  direction 
of  the  Grand  St.  Bernard  mountains  of  dark  verdure  rise  into  the 
air  like  pyramidal  black  wedges  cleaving  the  heavens.  We  are 
high  above  the  village,  and  on  one  side  can  look  down  sheer  into 
the  roaring  torrent,  many  hundred  feet ;  it  makes  you  dizzy  to 
look.  The  ruins  of  the  castle,  the  verdure  around  it,  the  village 
below,  the  silence  of  night,  the  summer  softness  of  the  air,  com- 
bined with  an  almost  autumnal  brightness,  the  mountains  in  their 
grandeur  sleeping  in  such  awful,  such  solemn  repose,  the  distant 
landscape,  so  indistinctly  beautiful,  the  white  rays  of  the  moon 
falling  in  such  sheets  of  misty  transparence  over  it,  and  the 
glittering  snowy  peaks  which  lift  themselves  before  you  like  grey 
prophets  of  a  thousand  years,  yea,  like  messengers  from  Eter- 


12  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  n. 

nity, — is  there  anything  needed  to  make  this  one  of  the  most 
magnificent  scenes,  and  most  impressive  too,  that  we  shall  be 
likely  to  find  in  all  Switzerland  ? 

"A  deep 

And  solemn  harmony  pervades 
The  hollow  vale  from  steep  to  steep, 
And  penetrates  the  glades." 

The  night  is  so  beautiful,  that  it  is  difficult  to  intrude  upon  it 
by  going  to  bed ;  and  yet,  if  travellers  would  be  up  betimes  in 
the  morning,  they  must  sleep  at  night.  But  all  night  long  me- 
thinks  one  could  walk  by  such  a  moon,  amidst  such  glorious 
mountains,  and  not  be  wearied.  Some  years  ago  we  passed  this 
same  valley  in  a  very  different  season,  when  a  great  part  of  the 
Swiss  world  was  covered  deep  with  snow,  and  the  frost  was  so 
sharp,  that  the  trodden  path  creaked  under  our  feet,  and  our 
breath  almost  froze  into  little  snow-clouds  in  the  air.  The 
scenery  then  was  of  a  savage  sublimity,  but  now,  how  beautiful ! 


CHAP,  in.]  DESPOTISM  IN  THE  VALAIS.  13 


CHAPTER  III. 

Ecclesiastical  despotism  in  the  Valais.     Measures  of  the  Jesuits. 

WE  started  at  six  in  the  morning,  again  in  a  cliar-d-banc,  for  Sion 
and  Sierre,  twenty-seven  miles.  A  party  of  lads  from  the  Jesuit 
Seminary  at  Fribourg  were  at  the  door,  under  the  care  of  their 
instructors,  accoutred  for  the  day's  pedestrian  excursion.  They 
spend  some  weeks  in  this  manner,  attended  by  the  priests ;  but 
learning  lessons  of  freedom  from  wild  nature,  drinking  in  the 
pure  mountain  air,  and  gaining  elasticity  of  body  and  spirit  by 
vigorous  exercise.  They  were  going  to  Chamouny.  Between 
Martigny  and  Sion,  our  man  of  the  char-d-banc  pointed  out  to  us 
the  scene  of  a  recent  desperate  conflict  between  the  iiberalists 
and  despotists  of  the  Canton,  part  of  which  ille  fuit,  and  the 
whole  of  which  he  saw,  being  on  the  Sion  side  when  they  burned 
the  beautiful  bridge  which  the  furious  torrent  had  so  long  re- 
spected. The  matter  has  ended  in  the  establishment  of  a  priestal 
republican  despotism,  under  which  the  protestant  religion  is  pro- 
scribed, its  exercise  forbidden  even  in  private,  the  protestant 
schools  are  broken  up,  and  intolerance  to  the  heart's  content  of 
Romanism  forms  the  political  and  religious  regime  of  the  Can- 
ton. The  Bishop  or  Archbishop  of  Sion,  which  is  the  chief  town 
of  the  Canton  du  Valais,  presides  over  the  general  assembly. 

Here  is  an  opportunity  of  instruction  for  impartial  observers, 
which  they  ought  not  to  let  pass.  It  is  always  interesting  to  see 
a  fair  experiment,  on  a  questioned  subject,  either  in  chemistry  or 
morals.  You  must  have  a  large  laboratory,  good  retorts,  fur- 
naces, crucibles,  blowpipes,  and  so  forth,  and  let  the  chemical 
agents  work  without  hindrance.  This  Canton  in  Switzerland  is 
a  grand  laboratory,  where  the  Jesuits,  unimpeded,  have  just  de- 
monstrated the  nature  of  their  system.  They  have  played  out 
the  play,  and  all  who  please  may  satisfy  themselves  as  to  the  re- 
siduum. In  point  of  oppression,  it  is  remarked  abroad,  they  have 


14  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  m. 

run  beyond  all  that  can  be  imagined  of  the  most  exorbitant  des- 
potism, not  stopping  contented  with  the  laws  of  Louis  XIV., 
but  dragging  from  the  mould  of  ages  the  legislation  even  of 
Louis  IX. 

I  shall  draw  a  description  of  their  freaks  from  a  Parisian  Jour- 
nal before  me,*  which  answers  the  question,  How  the  Jesuits 
govern  the  Canton  du  Valais.  The  Grand  Council  of  the  Can- 
ton, under  direction  of  Jesuit  Priests,  have  adopted  a  law  respect- 
ing illegal  assemblies,  and  condemnable  discussions  and  conversa- 
tions, of  which  the  first  article  runs  as  follows:  Those  who  hold 
conversations  tending  to  scandalize  the  Holy  Catholic,  Apostolic 
and  Roman  religion,  or  contrary  to  good  morals,  shall  be  pun- 
ished with  a  fine  of  from  20  to  200  francs,  and  imprisonment  from 
a  month  to  two  years.  Also  those  who  introduce,  affix,  expose, 
lend,  distribute,  or  keep  secretly  and  without  authorization,  writ- 
ings or  bad  books,  or  caricatures  which  attack  directly  or  indi- 
rectly the  Holy  Religion  of  the  State  and  its  Ministers.  The 
objects  designated  shall  be  confiscated,  and  in  case  of  a  second 
offence,  the  highest  amount  of  fine  and  imprisonment  shall  be 
doubled.  Blasphemers  are  to  be  punished  according  to  the 
criminal  laws. 

Here  are  two  classes  of  crime  noted ;  scandalous  and  blas- 
phemous conversations,  and  having  bad  books  in  your  library. 
A  Valaisan  may  chance  to  say  that  such  or  such  a  miracle 
published,  by  the  Reverend  Fathers,  appears  to  him  some- 
what Apocryphal ;  the  opinion  is  scandalous  against  the  Holy 
Catholic,  Apostolic  and  Romish  religion,  and  he  shall  undergo 
fine  and  imprisonment  for  his  enormous  crime.  He  dares  to  pre- 
tend that  certain  priests  do  not  set  the  best  possible  example ;  the 
opinion  is  thrice  scandalous,  for  which  he  shall  suffer  the  highest 
amount  of  fine  and  imprisonment.  He  goes  even  a  little  further ; 
possibly  he  discusses  the  claim  of  the  Virgin  Mary  to  the  adora- 
tion of  the  faithful,  and  maintains  that  on  this  point  the  Romish 
Church  is  contrary  to  the  New  Testament.  This  is  worse  than 
a  mere  scandalous  opinion  or  proposition  ;  it  is  blasphemy ;  and 
blasphemy  is  a  crime  for  criminal  law  to  punish.  If  the  hardy 

*  The  Semeur. 


CHAP,  in.]  LAWS  OF  THE  VALAIS.  15 

Valaisan  shall  dare  affirm  that  the  morality  of  the  Jesuits  is  pos- 
sibly very  immoral,  this  is  blasphemy  in  the  first  degree,  and 
must  be  punished  with  the  highest  infamy. 

It  is  almost  incredible  that  a  law  of  this  nature  can  have  been 
promulgated  in  1845,  upon  the  frontiers  of  France  and  Italy, 
under  notice  of  the  public  press,  when  the  Jesuits  have  so  many 
reasons  for  making  men  believe  that  their  system  is  not  incom- 
patible with  some  degree  of  liberty.  But  it  is  a  fair  experiment 
fully  played  out.  It  would  scarcely  have  been  believed  that  they 
would  have  dared  offer  to  Europe  a  spectacle  of  such  drunkenness 
of  despotism.  In  France,  the  people  were  full  of  indignation 
against  the  law  of  sacrilege  in  that  nation,  and  after  the  Revolu- 
tion of  July,  they  utterly  abolished  it.  But  that  law,  in  com- 
parison with  this  of  the  Canton  du  Valais,  concerning  scandalous 
opinions  and  propositions,  was  sweetness  and  benevolence  itself. 
It  was  necessary  at  least  to  have  actually  committed  the  offence 
in  some  place  of  worship,  during  the  religious  exercises,  or  to 
have  directly  attacked  some  minister  of  the  church.  But  in  the 
Canton  du  Valais  it  is  enough  to  have  simply  expressed  a  scan- 
dalous opinion,  in  the  street,  or  the  tavern,  or  in  one's  own  house 
in  presence  of  a  neighbor !  Did  the  Inquisition  ever  go  farther 
than  this  ? 

We  should  have  thought  that  the  laws  of  the  eleventh  century 
commanding  to  pierce  the  tongues  of  blasphemers  and  heretics 
with  a  hot  iron,  existed  now  only  in  history,  as  monuments  of  an 
atrocious  barbarity.  But  it  is  a  great  mistake.  The  Jesuits  suffer 
nothing  of  cruelty  and  infamy  to  perish.  They  keep  it  concealed 
for  a  season ;  they  shut  up  their  arsenal  when  the  popular  storm 
thunders ;  but  so  soon  as  the  sun  shines,  they  bring  up  again 
their  chains,  their  pitiless  axes  and  instruments  of  torture. 

Again  by  this  law  men  shall  be  fined  and  imprisoned,  not  only 
for  having  written  bad  books,  or  drawn  wicked  caricatures  against 
the  holy  religion  of  the  State,  not  only  for  having  introduced  into 
the  Canton,  or  exposed,  or  distributed,  or  lent,  such  books  or 
writings,  but  even  for  having  knowingly  or  without  tiuthorization 
kept  them  in  their  libraries.  An  inhabitant  of  the  Valais,  for 
example,  has  among  his  books  the  works  of  Voltaire,  Rousseau, 
Montesquieu,  or  even  the  new  writings  proscribed  in  the  Index 


16  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  in. 

of  the  Romish  Congregation,  such  as  the  books  of  Guizot,  Cousin, 
Dupin,  JoufFroy,  Thierry  ^  in  a  word,  whatever  work  may  have 
been  published  in  France  for  half  a  century,  except  the  nauseous 
productions  of  the  Jesuitical  school.  Well !  the  bare  fact  of  hav- 
ing kept  these  volumes  constitutes  a  crime,  unless  the  authoriza- 
tion of  the  Company  of  Ignatius  shall  have  been  obtained,  a  thing 
which  cannot  be,  except  for  its  most  devoted  creatures.  Cer- 
tainly, this  is  new,  original,  unheard  of.  We  have  heard  of 
certain  ordinances  of  our  ancient  kings  punishing  the  readers  of 
a  bad  book,  after  having  condemned  the  author ;  but  we  never 
heard  of  a  law  pronouncing  a  universal  sentence  against  the 
proprietors  and  keepers  of  works  contrary  to  the  Holy  Catholic, 
Apostolic  and  Romish  religion. 

But  how  can  the  law  be  executed  ?  Will  they  make  domi- 
ciliary visits,  to  examine,  one  after  another,  the  books  belonging 
to  each  individual  ?  Will  they  ferret  for  them  in  the  secret  coi- 
ners of  the  household,  in  order  to  be  sure  that  the  proscribed 
writings  are  not  shut  up  in  some  hiding-place  ?  When  a  poor 
inhabitant  of  the  Canton  comes  under  the  suspicions  of  the  Clergy 
because  he  has  not  regularly  kept  the  fasts,  nor  taken  his  note 
of  confession  at  canonical  times,  will  they  break  open  his  bureaus, 
his  furniture,  to  discover  the  unhappy  volumes,  which  have  in- 
spired him  with  such  infidelity  ?  We  should  not  be  at  all  sur- 
prised at  this.  Where  there  is  a  will,  there  is  a  way.  If  they 
would  not  shrink  from  publishing  such  a  monstrous  law,  neither 
will  they  quail  before  the  measure  necessary  to  carry  it  into  exe- 
cution. It  will  be  a  permanent  inquisition,  which  will  always 
possess  the  means  of  oppressing  and  breaking  down  those  who 
will  not  humbly  bow  beneath  its  yoke  of  bondage. 

Talk  to  us  after  this  of  the  generous  principles  of  the  Jesuits 
and  the  Romish  Priests  !  Tell  us,  ye  propagandists  of  the  Rom- 
ish faith,  your  love  of  liberty  !  Tell  us  for  the  millionth  time 
that  you,  and  you  only,  know  how  to  respect  the  rights  of  the 
people  and  the  progress  of  humanity  !  Pretend  your  loving  de- 
mocracy in  your  sermons  and  your  journals !  Go  to,  we  know 
you  of  old,  and  soon  there  will  not  be  a  reasonable  man  in  the 
world,  who  will  not  discover  under  your  mask  the  deep  imprints 
of  your  insatiable  instinct  of  tyranny  !  If  there  were  the  least 


CHAP,  in.]  LAWS  OF  THE  VALAIS.  17 

particle  of  sincerity  in  your  liberal  maxims  and  pretences,  you 
would  at  least  express  your  indignation  against  such  monstrous 
laws  promulgated  in  the  Canton  du  Valais ;  you  would  attack 
these  abominable  enterprises  of  the  Jesuits  ;  but  what  one  of 
your  journals  is  there,  that  would  have  the  frankness  and  sin- 
cerity to  do  this  ?  Every  Ecclesiastical  Gazette  is  silent,  and 
yet  to-morrow  these  same  despotic  journals  will  dare  tell  their 
adversaries  that  they  are  the  enemies  of  liberty. 

Comedians,  comedians !  the  execrable  farce  you  are  playing 
will  have  to  be  finished,  and  then  beware  of  the  conclusion ! 

This  is  an  energetic  strain  of  criticism,  appeal,  and  invective, 
before  which,  if  there  be  much  of  it,  such  detestable  measures 
cannot  stand.  The  Jesuits  are  the  Mamelukes  of  the  Romish 
Church ;  neither  king  nor  people  can  be  independent  or  free 
where  such  a  body  of  tyrants,  the  worse  for  being  secret,  bear 
sway.  Note  the  expression  directly  or  indirectly  in  the  law 
against  writings  and  propositions  tending  to  bring  into  disrepute 
the  Holy  Romish  religion  of  State.  What  traps  and  caverns  of 
tyranny  are  here  !  What  room  for  more  than  inquisitorial  acute- 
ness  and  cruelty,  in  searching  out  and  detecting  the  indirect  ten- 
dencies of  publications,  which  the  Priests  see  fit  to  proscribe. 
The  most  innocent  writing  may  thus  be  made  the  ground  of  a 
severe  imprisonment ;  and  as  to  all  investigation  or  discussion  of 
the  truth,  it  becomes  impossible. 

But  we  have  pleasanter  footsteps  to  follow  than  those  of  the 
Jesuits ;  so  farewell  to  their  trail  for  the  present.  We  shall 
meet  them  again  in  Switzerland* 

PART  II.  3 


18  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  iv. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Physical  plagues  of  the  Canton  du  Valais  and  of  Switzerland.    Hospital 
for  the  Cretins. 

APPROACHING  Sion  from  Martigny  the  view  is  exceedingly  pic- 
turesque and  romantic,  by  reason  of  several  extensive  old  castles 
on  successive  craggy  peaks,  that  rise  in  commanding  grandeur, 
like  the  Acropolis  at  Athens,  and  seem,  as  you  advance  upwards, 
to  fill  the  whole  valley.  One  of  the  highest  summits  is  crowned 
with  a  church  or  convent,  a  most  imposing  object,  seen  against 
the  sky  long  before  you  arrive  at  the  base  of  the  village.  The 
view  from  this  church  in  every  direction,  or  from  the  crags  on 
which  it  is  perched,  is  so  extensive,  so  rich,  and  so  picturesque, 
as  abundantly  to  recompense  even  a  tired  traveller  for  the  toil  of 
the  ascent.  Besides,  there  is  on  this  hill  an  exceedingly  aged 
old  rocky  edifice  of  worship,  that  looks  as  if  it  might  have  ex- 
isted before  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  itself  began  to  have  a 
being.  Of  the  village  below,  wooden  shoes  and  woollen  stockings 
seemed  to  be  the  staple  commodity,  while  a  knot  of  industrious 
women,  washing  clothes  around  the  fountain  in  the  centre  of  the 
street,  were,  when  we  passed,  the  most  striking  object  in  view. 

Age,  disease,  uncleanly  cottages,  hard  labor,  penury,  scanty 
and  unwholesome  food,  will  transform  beauty  into  ugliness,  any- 
where in  the  world,  even  under  the  most  delicious  climate.  What 
a  change  !  Could  any  being,  unacquainted  with  the  progress  of 
our  race  from  elastic  youth  to  that  colorless,  toothless  time,  when 
the  grasshopper  is  a  burden,  believe  that  these  forms,  which  seern 
now  a  company  of  the  personified  genii  of  wrinkles,  were  once 
as  fair  as  the  Virgin  Mother  of  their  invocations  ?  They  may 
have  been.  Youth  itself  is  beauty,  and  the  most  secret,  black, 
and  midnight  hags  were  once  young.  But  Shakspeare  need  not 
have  gone  upon  the  Continent,  nor  Wordsworth  among  the  fish- 
women  of  Calais,  to  find  good  types  of  witches.  I  think  I  have 


CHAP,  iv.]  PLAGUE  OF  GRETINISM.  19 

seen  in  Edinburgh  as  fair  examples  of  tough,  old,  furrowed  ugli- 
ness, as  in  Switzerland,  or  Turkey,  or  Italy,  or  Spain,  or  Egypt. 
Old  age  is  beautiful,  when  gentleness  goes  with  it,  and  it  has 
filial  tenderness  and  care  to  lean  upon  ;  the  Christian's  hope 
within,  and  the  reverential  fond  pride  and  honor  of  grey  hairs  in 
the  household,  make  up  a  picture  almost  as  beautiful  as  that  of  a 
babe  in  the  cradle,  or  a  girl  at  play.  But  where,  from  infancy 
to  three  score  years  and  ten,  there  are  only  the  hardest,  wrinkle- 
making  realities  of  life,  its  tasks  without  its  compensations,  and 
its  withering  superstitions  without  its  consolations,  there  can  be 
nothing  left  of  beauty  ;  humanity  stands  like  a  blasted  pine  in 
the  desert. 

"  'Tis  said,  fantastic  Ocean  doth  unfold 
The  likeness  of  whate'er  on  land  is  seen ; 
But,  if  the  Nereid  Sisters  and  their  Queen, 
Above  whose  heads  the  tide  so  long  hath  rolled, 
The  dames  resemble,  whom  we  here  behold, 
How  terrible  beneath  the  opening  waves 
To  sink,  and  meet  them  in  their  fretted  caves, 
Withered,  grotesque,  immeasurably  old." 

Your  attention  in  the  Valley  of  the  Rhone  is  painfully  turned 
to  the  miserable  cretins  or  idiots,  and  those  unfortunate  beings, 
whose  necks  are  distended  with  the  excrescences  of  the  goitre,  as 
if  hung  round  with  swollen  bladders  of  flesh.  The  poor  creatures 
so  afflicted  did  always  seem  to  me  to  have  an  exceeding  weight 
of  sadness  in  their  countenances,  though  they  went  about  labor- 
ing like  others.  These  frightful  diseases  prevail  among  the 
population  of  the  Valais  to  a  greater  extent  than  anywhere  else 
in  Switzerland.  The  number  of  inhabitants  in  Sion  is  about 
2500.  Poverty,  disease,  and  filth  mark  the  whole  valley  ;  and 
so  long  as  the  people  are  shut  up  to  the  superstitions  of 
Romanism,  so  long  they  must  remain  shut  out  from  the  only  con- 
solations that  could  be  some  support  amidst  their  miseries,  and 
debarred  from  the  only  refining  and  elevating  influences,  that 
could  soften  and  bless  a  condition  so  sad  as  theirs. 

Of  the  two  physical  plagues  that  infest  the  beautiful  valleys 
of  Switzerland,  cretinism  is  by  far  the  worst.  It  is  the  most  re- 
pulsive and  painful  form  of  idiocy  I  have  ever  witnessed.  It 


20  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  iv. 

makes  the  human  being  look  less  intelligent  than  the  brute.  A 
hooting  cry  between  a  howl  and  a  burst  of  laughter  sometimes 
breaks  from  the  staring  and  gibbering  object  before  you,  a  crea- 
ture that  haunts  the  villages,  you  cannot  say  like  a  spectre,  for 
these  miserable  beings  seemed  always  in  good  flesh,  but  like  the 
personification  of  the  twin  brother  of  madness,  and  far  more 
fearful.  It  creates  a  solemn  awe  in  the  soul,  to  look  upon  one 
of  these  beings,  in  whom  the  mind  does  not  seem  so  much  de- 
ranged, as  departed,  gone  utterly,  not  a  gleam  of  the  Spirit  left, 
the  household  dog  looking  incomparably  more  human.  It  is  a 
dreadful  sight.  The  cretin  will  sometimes  hobble  after  you  with 
open  hand,  grinning  for  charity,  with  a  chaotic  laugh,  like  a  gust 
of  wind  clattering  through  the  hall  of  a  ruined  castle. 

In  the  midst  of  poverty  this  calamity  is  doubled,  and  none  of 
its  salient  points  of  grim,  disgusting  misery  can  be  concealed. 
The  families  and  villages  where  it  is  developed  are  for  the  most 
part  miserably  poor.  Filth,  squalid  corners  for  sleep,  and  im- 
pure nourishment,  help  on  the  disease,  like  fuel  for  the  plague. 
No  moral  causes  are  set  in  motion,  no  more  than  physical,  to 
combat  or  hinder  its  progress,  or  ameliorate  the  condition  of  its 
victim  ;  the  family  and  the  village  bear  the  burden  in  silent 
hopeless  despair,  as  a  condemned  criminal  wears  his  chains. 
The  only  milder  feature  of  the  wretchedness  that  you  can  think 
of  is  this,  that  the  poor  cretin  himself  is  not  in  pain,  and  is  per- 
fectly insensible  to  his  condition. 

But  perhaps  you  are  asking  if  there  are  no  benevolent  efforts 
to  remedy  this  great  evil,  no  asylums  or  hospitals  for  the  poor 
creatures  so  stricken.  I  know  of  only  one,  and  that  of  recent 
establishment,  though  there  was  never  a  more  suitable  field  for 
philanthropy  to  work  in.  The  celebrated  philosopher  Saussure 
conceived  that  this  disease  of  cretinism  must  be  owing  to  a  vicious 
atmosphere,  wanting  in  some  of  the  elements  necessary  to  the 
healthful  development  of  the  human  system.  Meditating  on  this 
point,  a  philanthropic  physician  among  the  Oberland  Alps  not 
long  since  conceived  the  happy  idea  of  combating  this  evil  at  its 
commencement,  by  taking  the  children  in  their  infancy  from  the 
fearful  influence  darting  upon  them,  and  carrying  them  away  to 
be  nourished  and  strengthened  by  the  pure  air  of  the  mountains. 


CHAP,  iv.]  ASYLUM  FOR  THE  CRETINS.  21 

The  name  of  this  excellent  man  was  Doctor  Guggenbiihl.  He 
had  been  called  one  day  to  examine  a  case  of  some  malignant 
disease,  which  for  ages  from  time  to  time  had  ravaged  the  beau- 
tiful valleys  of  the  higher  Alps,  when  his  attention  was  fixed  by 
an  old  Cretin,  who  was  idiotically  Hating  a  half  forgotten  prayer 
before  an  image  of  the  Virgin  at  Seedorf  in  the  Canton  Uri. 
How  melancholy  that  the  only  religion  learned  by  the  poor  idiot 
was  that  of  an  Ave  Maria  before  a  wooden  image !  But  the 
sight  deeply  agitated  the  sensibilities  of  the  physician  in  behalf 
of  those  unfortunate  creatures,  and,  as  he  says,  "  fixed  his  voca- 
tion." A  being  susceptible  of  the  least  idea  of  God  seemed  to  him 
worthy  of  every  care  and  every  sacrifice.  "  These  stricken  in- 
dividuals of  our  race,"  said  he,  "  these  brethren  beaten  down, 
are  they  not  more  worthy  of  our  efforts,  than  those  races  of  ani- 
mals, which  men  strive  to  bring  to  perfection  ?  It  is  not  in  vain 
formulas,  but  in  charitable  efforts  that  we  must  find  that  divine 
love  which  Jesus  Christ  has  taught  us." 

Dr.  Guggenbiihl  went  immediately  at  work.  The  attempt 
had  never  been  tried,  of  which  the  idea  had  come  to  him,  but  he 
found  encouragement  and  sympathy.  He  fixed  upon  a  Moun- 
tain in  the  Oberland  called  the  Abendberg,  elevated  about  three 
thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  seeming  to  him  to 
combine  all  the  requisites  for  the  foundation  of  his  establishment. 
Having  issued  his  appeals  and  subscriptions,  he  soon  received 
funds  sufficient  for  the  support  of  some  twenty  children,  and  con- 
secrated all  his  efforts  to  the  moral  and  physical  development  of 
his  interesting  family.  He  placed  them  in  the  circle  of  a  simple 
but  comfortable  domestic  life,  so  distant  from  the  world  as  not  to 
be  distracted  by  its  noise,  so  near  to  it  as  to  be  accessible  to  all 
the  good  resources  of  a  civilized  society. 

The  mountain  air  was  pure  and  sweet  for  them  to  breathe  in. 
The  mountain  streams  gave  them  pure  running  water  for  drink- 
ing, bathing,  and  washing.  The  forests  afforded  wood  for  the 
construction  of  their  asylum,  around  which  the  land  was  laid  out 
in  gardens.  The  farm  gave  them  plenty  of  butter  and  milk, 
eggs  and  poultry.  Regular  means  of  communication  were  es- 
tablished with  Unterseen,  Interlachen,  and  other  subjacent 
villages. 


22  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  IY. 

The  first  medical  efforts  of  Dr.  Guggenbuhl  with  his  interest- 
ing patients  were  applied  to  the  education,  and,  in  a  manner,  the 
regeneration,  of  the  physical  organs  attacked  first  by  the  malady, 
which  plays  such  frightful  ravages  afterwards  upon  the  mind. 
The  sensitive  form  is  first  to  be  restored  to  its  natural  strength 
and  delicacy,  and  then  the  conscience  and  the  wandering  facul- 
ties shall  be  won  back,  as  it  were,  to  abide  within  it.  The  change 
from  the  hot,  damp,  and  stagnant  atmosphere  of  poor  filthy  hovels 
in  narrow  valleys,  to  the  clear,  cool,  bracing  air  of  the  mountain 
summits,  is  itself  enough  to  create  a  gradual  regeneration  in  the 
whole  physical  being.  The  patient  breathes  the  principle  of  a 
new  life,  and  this  is  powerfully  aided  by  a  simple,  healthful 
nourishment,  exercise  in  the  open  air,  varied  and  increasing  in 
proportion  as  strength  is  regained.  Cold  bathing,  frictions,  and 
various  games  adapted  to  fix  the  attention,  and  inspire  quick 
voluntary  movement,  are  added  to  this  routine  of  discipline. 

When  thus  he  has  succeeded  in  modifying  the  physical  organs, 
and  giving  them  a  direction  towards  health  and  activity,  Dr. 
Guggenbuhl  begins  upon  the  mental  faculties.  Probably  the 
degrees  of  idiocy,  towards  which  the  disease  has  advanced,  are 
various,  sometimes  but  the  commencement,  sometimes  sadly  con- 
firmed. The  report  from  which  I  draw  these  particulars  states 
that  Dr.  Guggenbuhl  possesses  an  admirable  assistant  in  his 
labors  of  instruction.  I  have  watched  this  person  descending, 
says  the  writer,  with  the  sweetest  patient  benevolence,  to  the  level 
of  these  little  idiots,  and  there  striking  with  perseverance  upon 
the  hard  stone  within,  till  some  little  sparkle  of  fire  shall  be 
elicited,  some  sparkling  indication  of  intelligence.  And  when 
he  has  once  succeeded  in  seizing  the  least  end  of  the  thread  of 
thought,  with  what  infinite  precautions  does  he  unroll  it,  lest  it  be 
broken.  Then  at  length  are  multiplied  in  the  depths  of  the 
previous  intellectual  obscurity  a  series  of  fruitful,  thought-awak- 
ening images. 

How  delightful  is  this  !  It  is  almost  worth  the  suffering  of 
the  calamity,  to  have  so  truly  benevolent  an  institution  spring 
from  it.  This  indeed,  if  not  one  of  the  final  causes  of  calamity 
in  this  world,  is  one  of  its  compensating  blessings,  to  give  men 
opportunity  for  the  growth  and  discipline  of  charity  and  love. 


CHAP,  iv.]  MOUNTAIN  HOSPITAL.  23 

For  the  benefit  of  this  Mountain  Hospital  contributions  have  been 
made  at  Geneva,  at  Bale,  Hamburg,  Amsterdam,  and  London. 
The  King  of  Prussia  with  many  foreigners  of  distinction  have 
interested  themselves  in  it.  Its  successful  and  benignant  influ- 
ence is  but  a  type  of  what  would  wait  upon  the  whole  Valley,  if 
all  its  families  could  be  blest  with  a  truly  Christian  education. 
Indeed,  if  all  the  ignorant  and  degraded  children  of  the  Canton 
du  Valais  could  be  taken  to  the  mountains  and  freely  and  fully 
educated,  the  Canton  itself  would  speedily  be  free ;  all  the 
Jesuitism  in  Europe  could  not  bring  back  the  people  to  their  old 
bondage  of  ignorance  and  superstition. 


24  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  v. 


CHAPTER   V. 

Gorge  of  the  Dala. 

AT  Sierre,  a  few  miles  beyond  Sion,  we  were  to  leave  the  valley 
of  the  Rhone  for  the  wonderful  pass  of  the  Gemmi,  and  here 
commenced  my  pedestrianizing  in  good  earnest.  It  is  always  a 
singularly  interesting  excursion  to  go  by  a  side  pass  from  one  val- 
ley, across  an  apparently  impregnable  barrier  of  mountains,  over 
into  another.  To  cross  the  Gemmi  from  the  valley  of  the  Rhone, 
you  may  start  from  the  village  of  Leuk,  or  turn  off  as  we  did 
from  Sierre  by  a  path  of  incomparable  beauty,  winding  gradually 
within  the  mountains,  and  rising  rapidly  by  a  precipitous  ascent, 
where  at  every  step  your  view  up  and  down  the  valley  you  are 
leaving  becomes  more  inimitably  grand  and  vast.  You  clamber 
over  the  little  village  of  Varen,  which  at  first  was  hanging  above 
you,  leaving  it  far  below,  as  well  as  that  of  Leuk,  which  you 
see  farther  up  the  valley,  and  thus  you  are  toiling  on,  thinking 
perhaps  that  you  are  witnessing  some  of  the  wildest,  most  pic- 
turesque and  extensive  views  to  be  enjoyed  on  this  excursion, 
when  all  at  once  there  bursts  upon  you  a  scene,  surpassing  all 
previous  experience  and  anticipation.  You  rise  to  the  summit 
of  a  steep  ascent,  step  upon  a  space  of  table  land,  advance  a  few 
feet,  and  suddenly  find  yawning  before  you  a  fearful  gulf  of 
some  nine  hundred  feet  deep,  into  which  the  ridge  on  which  you 
stand  seems  beetling  over,  ready  to  fall  with  your  own  weight. 
It  is  the  gulf  of  the  Dala,  a  torrent  which  rolls  at  the  bottom,  but 
almost  too  far  down  for  you  to  see  the  swift  glance  of  the  water, 
or  hear  the  roar,  for  even  the  thunder  of  the  cataract  of  Niagara 
would  be  well  nigh  buried  in  its  depths. 

Advancing  a  few  steps  in  the  direction  of  this  gulf,  and  turn- 
ing a  natural  bastion  of  the  mountain,  there  comes  sweeping  down 
upon  you  from  above,  a  gorge  of  overwhelming  grandeur,  over- 


CHAP,  v.]  GORGE  OF  THE  DALA.  25 

whelming  both  by  the  surprise  and  the  deep  sublimity  of  the 
scene.  You  tremble  to  enter  it,  and  staad  fixed  in  silent  awe  and 
admiration.  Below  you  is  that  fearful  gulf  down  plunging  in 
a  sheer  perpendicular  of  almost  a  thousand  feet,  while  above  you 
is  a  tremendous  overhanging  precipice  of  near  an  equal  height, 
adown  and  across  the  face  of  which  runs,  cut  out,  1he  zigzag 
perilous  gallery,  by  which  you  are  to  pass.  Whole  strata  of 
this  perpendicular  face  of  the  mountain  seem  loosened  above, 
and  ready  to  bury  you  in  their  fall,  and  the  loose  stones  come 
thundering  down  now  and  then  with  the  terror  of  an  avalanche. 
You  step  carefully  down  the  gallery,  or  shelf,  till  perhaps  you  are 
near  the  centre  of  the  pass ;  now  look  up  to  heaven  along  the 
perpendicular  height  above  you,  if  you  can  do  it  without  falling, 
and  see  those  bare  pines,  that  seem  bending  over  the  edge  ;  they 
look  as  if  blanched  with  terror.  What  a  steep  gigantic  moun- 
tain brow  they  fringe !  You  feel  as  if  the  gallery,  where  you 
are  treading,  were  a  perilous  position,  and  yet  you  cannot  resist 
going  back  and  gazing  again  down  into  the  measureless  gulf,  and 
enjoying  again  the  sudden  sweep  of  this  sublime  gorge  upon 
your  vision.  Towards  the  pass  of  the  Gemmi,  it  is  closed  by  a 
vast  ridge  of  frowning  castellated  mountains,  and  still  beyond 
that,  loftier  snowy  summits  are  shining,  such  pyramids  of  pure 
snow,  that  they  seem  as  if  they  would  fling  the  hues  of  sunset 
that  flash  upon  them,  down  into  the  farthest  recesses  of  the  val- 
ley as  it  darkens  in  the  evening. 

It  was  such  a  sight  as  this,  that  suggested  that  beautiful  son- 
net of  Wordsworth,  closing  with  so  fine  an  image. 

"  GLORY  to  God  !  and  to  the  Power  who  came 
In  filial  duty,  clothed  with  love  divine  ; 
That  made  his  human  tabernacle  shine 
Like  Ocean  burning  with  purpureal  flame  ; 
Or  like  the  Alpine  Mount,  that  takes  its  name 
From  roseate  hues,  far  kenn'd  at  morn  and  even, 
In  times  of  peace,  or  when  the  storm  is  driven 
Along  the  nether  region's  rugged  frame ! 
Earth  prompts — Heaven  urges  ;  let  us  seek  the  light, 
Studious  of  that  pure  intercourse  begun 
When  first  our  infant  brows  their  lustre  won ; 
So  like  the  Mountain,  may  we  grow  more  bright, 


26  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  v. 

From  unimpeded  commerce  with  the  Sun, 
At  the  approach  of  all-involving  night ! " 

But  what  is  it  that  arrests  your  eye  on  the  other  side  of  the 
gulf,  overhung  in  like  manner  with  a  sheer  perpendicular  moun- 
tain ?  There  seems  to  be  something  in  motion  along  the  smooth 
face  of  the  precipice,  but  it  is  not  possible.  You  look  again 
steadily ;  it  is  actually  a  line  of  mules  and  travellers,  creeping 
like  flies  along  the  face  of  a  wall,  and  you  find  there  is  a  road 
there  also,  cut  along  this  fearful  gulf  out  of  the  solid  rock ;  but 
it  is  so  far  across,  that  the  passing  caravan  of  travellers  seems 
like  moving  insects.  You  watch  them  a  few  moments,  as  they 
perhaps  are  watching  you ;  and  now  they  pass  from  the  cliff,  and 
enter  on  the  winding  fir-covered  path,  that  takes  them  along  the 
thundering  torrent  of  the  Dala  down  to  the  village  of  Leuk. 

The  view  of  this  gorge  might  not  perhaps  have  appeared  to  us 
quite  so  sublime,  had  we  been  prepared  for  it,  or  had  we  come 
gradually  upon  it ;  but  the  solemn,  sudden,  overwhelming  gran- 
deur of  the  view  makes  it  one  of  the  finest  passes  in  all  Switzer- 
land. It  stirs  the  very  depths  of  your  soul  within  you,  and  it 
seems  as  if  you  could  remain  motionless  before  it,  and  not  wish- 
ing to  move,  from  daylight  to  sunset,  and  from  sunset  to  the  moon, 
whose  pale,  soft,  silver  light  steeps  the  vales  and  crags  and  gla- 
ciers with  such  romantic  beauty. 


CHAP,  vi.]  LANDSCAPE  ELEMENTS.  27 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Elements  of  the  landscape.     Alpine  flowers.     Jonathan  Edwards. 

PASSING  out  from  this  wonderful  scene,  through  a  forest  of 
larches,  whose  dark  verdure  is  peculiarly  appropriate  to  it,  and 
going  up  towards  the  baths  of  Leuk,  the  interest  of  the  landscape 
does  not  at  all  diminish.  What  a  concentration  and  congrega- 
tion of  all  elements  of  sublimity  and  beauty  are  before  you  ! 
what  surprising  contrasts  of  light  and  shade,  of  form  and  color, 
of  softness  and  ruggedness  !  Here  are  vast  heights  above  you, 
and  vast  depths  below,  villages  hanging  to  the  mountain  sides, 
green  pasturages  and  winding  paths,  chalets  dotting  the  moun- 
tains, lovely  meadow  slopes  enamelled  with  flowers,  deep  immea- 
surable ravines,  torrents  thundering  down  them,  colossal,  overhang- 
ing, castellated  reefs  of  granite,  snowy  peaks  with  the  setting  sun 
upon  them.  You  command  a  view  far  down  over  the  valley  of 
the  Rhone  with  its  villages  and  castles,  and  its  mixture  of  rich 
farms  and  vast  beds  and  heaps  of  mountain  fragments,  deposited 
by  furious  torrents.  What  affects  the  mind  very  powerfully  on 
first  entering  upon  these  scenes  is  the  deep  dark  blue,  so  intensely 
deep  and  overshadowing,  of  the  gorge  at  its  upper  end,  and  the 
magnificent  proud  sweep  of  the  granite  barrier,  which  there  shuts 
it  in,  apparently  without  a  passage.  The  mountains  rise  like 
vast  supernatural  intelligences  taking  a  material  shape,  and  draw- 
ing  around  themselves  a  drapery  of  awful  grandeur ;  there  is  a 
forehead  of  power  and  majesty,  and  the  likeness  of  a  kingly 
crown  above  it. 

Amidst  all  the  grandeur  of  this  scenery,  I  remember  to  have 
been  in  no  place  more  delighted  with  the  profuse  richness,  deli- 
cacy and  beauty  of  the  Alpine  flowers.  The  grass  of  the  mea- 
dow slopes  in  the  gorge  of  the  Dala  had  a  depth  and  power  of 
verdure,  a  clear,  delicious  greenness,  that  in  its  effect  upon  the 


28  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  vi. 

mind  was  like  that  of  the  atmosphere  in  the  brightest  autumnal 
morning  of  the  year,  or  rather,  perhaps,  like  the  colors  of  the  sky 
at  sunset.  There  is  no  such  grass-color  in  the  world,  as  that  of 
these  mountain  meadows.  It  is  just  the  same  at  the  verge  of  the 
ice  oceans  of  Mont  Blanc.  It  makes  you  think  of  one  of  the 
points  chosen  by  the  Sacred  Poet  to  illustrate  the  divine  benevo- 
lence (and  I  had  almost  said,  no  man  can  truly  understand  why 
it  was  chosen,  who  has  not  travelled  in  Switzerland),  "•  Who 
maketh  the  grass  to  grow  upon  the  mountains." 

And  then  the  flowers,  so  modest,  so  lovely,  yet  of  such  deep 
exquisite  hue,  enamelled  in  the  grass,  sparkling  amidst  it,  "  a 
starry  multitude,"  underneath  such  awful  brooding  mountain 
forms,  and  icy  precipices,  how  beautiful !  All  that  the  Poets 
have  ever  said  or  sung  of  Daisies,  Violets,  Snow-drops,  King- 
cups, Primroses,  and  all  modest  flowers,  is  here  out-done  by  the 
mute  poetry  of  the  denizens  of  these  wild  pastures.  Such  a 
meadow  slope  as  this,  watered  with  pure  rills  from  the  glaciers, 
would  have  set  the  mind  of  Edwards  at  work  in  contemplation 
on  the  beauty  of  holiness.  He  has  connected  these  meek  and 
lowly  flowers  with  an  image,  which  none  of  the  Poets  of  this 
world  have  ever  thought  of.  To  him  the  divine  beauty  of  holi- 
ness "  made  the  soul  like  a  field  or  garden  of  God,  with  all  man- 
mer  of  pleasant  flowers  ;  all  pleasant,  delightful,  and  undisturbed  • 
enjoying  a  sweet  calm,  and  the  gentle,  vivifying  beams  of  the 
Sun.  The  soul  of  a  true  Christian  appears  like  such  a  little 
white  flower  as  we  see  in  the  spring  of  the  year ;  low  and  hum- 
ble on  the  ground  ;  opening  its  bosom  to  receive  the  pleasant 
beams  of  the  Sun's  glory  ;  rejoicing,  as  it  were,  in  a  calm  rap- 
ture ;  diffusing  around  a  sweet  fragrancy ;  standing  peacefully 
and  lovingly,  in  the  midst  of  other  flowers  round  about ;  all  in 
like  manner  opening  their  bosoms  to  drink  in  the  light  of  the 
Sun." 

Very  likely  such  a  passage  as  this,  coming  from  the  soul  of 
the  great  theologian  (for  this  is  the  poetry  of  the  soul,  and  not  of 
artificial  sentiment,  nor  of  the  mere  worship  of  nature),  will 
seem  to  many  persons,  like  violets  in  the  bosom  of  a  glacier.  But 
no  poet  ever  described  the  meek,  modest  flowers  so  beautifully, 
rejoicing  in  a  calm  rapture.  Jonathan  Edwards  himself,  with  his 


CHAP,  vi.]  ALPINE  FLOWERS.  29 

grand  views  of  sacred  theology  and  history,  his  living  piety,  and 
his  great  experience  in  the  deep  things  of  God,  was  like  a  moun- 
,tain  glacier,  in  one  respect,  as  the  "  parent  of  perpetual  streams," 
that  are  then  the  deepest,  when  all  the  fountains  of  the  world  are 
driest ;  like,  also,  in  another  respect,  that  in  climbing  his  theology 
you  get  very  near  to  heaven,  and  are  in  a  very  pure  and  bracing 
atmosphere ;  like,  again,  in  this,  that  it  requires  much  spiritual 
labor  and  discipline  to  surmount  his  heights,  and  some  care  not 
to  fall  into  the  crevasses  ;  and  like,  once  more,  in  this,  that  when 
you  get  to  the  top,  you  have  a  vast,  wide,  glorious  view  of  God's 
great  plan,  and  see  things  in  their  chains  and  connections,  which 
before  you  only  saw  separate  and  piecemeal. 


30  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  vn. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Moon  and  the  Mountains.     Village  of  Leuk. 

THE  village  of  the  Baths  of  Leuk  is  at  the  head  of  this  gorge, 
at  the  foot  of  the  celebrated  pass  of  the  Gemmi.  The  wonders 
of  the  scenery  are  greater  than  the  marvels  of  Oriental  romance ; 
it  is  a  totally  different  world  from  that  which  lies  below  you,  that 
where  you  were  born.  You  seem  to  have  risen  to  the  verge 
between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  between  the  visible 
and  the  invisible ;  or  to  have  come  to  the  great  barriers,  behind 
which  lies  open  "  the  multitudinous  abyss,"  where  Nature  hides 
her  secret  elemental  processes  and  marvels.  Strange  enough, 
the  village  in  the  remembrance  reminds  me  of  Nicomedia  in 
Turkey.  The  moon  rose  about  eight  o'clock  from  behind  the  moun- 
tains beneath  which  the  baths  and  the  hamlets  are  situated,  so 
that  we  had  the  hour  and  the  scene  of  all  others  in  some  respects 
most  beautiful.  No  language  can  describe  the  extraordinary 
effect  of  the  light  falling  on  the  mighty  perpendicular  crags  and 
ridges  of  the  Gemmi  on  the  other  side,  while  the  village  itself 
remained  in  darkness.  It  appeared  as  if  the  face  of  this  moun- 
tain was  gradually  lighting  up  from  an  inward  pale  fire,  suffused 
in  rich  radiance  over  it,  for  it  was  hours  before  we  could  see  the 
moon,  though  we  could  see  her  veil  of  soft  light  resting  upon 
those  gigantic,  rock-ribbed,  regal  barriers  of  nature. 

There  is  an  inexpressible  solemnity  to  the  mind  in  the  sight 
of  those  still  and  awful  forms  rising  in  the  silent  night,  how 
silently,  how  impressively  !  Their  voice  is  of  eternity,  of 
God  ;  and  why  it  is  I  cannot  tell,  but  certain  it  is,  that  the  deep 
intense  blue  of  distant  mountains  by  day  impresses  the  mind  in 
the  same  way  with  a  sense  of  eternity.  Vastness  of  material 
masses  produces  the  same  impression  on  the  mind  as  vastness  of 
time  and  space ;  but  why  intensity  of  color  should  have  so  pecu- 


CHAP,  vii.]  MAKING  HAY  BY  MOONLIGHT.  31 

liarly  sublime  an  effect  I  know  not,  unless  it  be  simply  from  con- 
nection with  such  vastness  of  material  form.  At  all  events  the 
mountains  in  these  aspects  do  raise  the  mind  irresistibly  to  God 
and  eternity,  making  the  devout  heart  adore  him  with  praise  and 
awe,  and  compelling  even  the  careless  heart  into  an  unusual 
sense  of  his  power  and  glory.  Sometimes  the  mountains  seem 
as  if  shouting  to  one  another,  God !  Sometimes  they  seem  re- 
peating in  a  low,  deep,  stilly  murmur  of  adoration,  God  !  Some- 
times they  seem  to  stand  and  gaze  silently  at  you  with  a  look 
that  goes  down  into  the  soul,  and  makes  the  same  impression, 
God! 

How  different  it  is  with  men,  their  huts,  their  palaces,  their 
movements,  their  manners  !  Often  there  is  nothing  to  remind  you 
of  God,  save  the  profane  oath,  in  which  his  dread,  sacred  name 
drops  from  the  lips  in  blasphemy ;  that  fearful  oath,  which  on 
the  continent  of  Europe  has  given  a  name  to  Englishmen,  and 
of  which  no  European  language  can  afford  a  rival  or  a  parallel. 

This  beautiful  night,  after  the  moon  was  fully  risen,  I  could 
not  resist  the  temptation,  notwithstanding  the  fatigues  of  the  day, 
to  walk  down  alone  to  that  deep,  wild,  fir-clad  gorge,  through 
which  the  torrent  of  the  Dala  was  thundering,  that  I  might  ex- 
perience the  full  and  uninterrupted  impression  of  moonlight  and 
solitude  in  so  grand  a  scene.  As  I  passed  down  from  the  village 
through  the  meadow  slopes  toward  the  black  depths  of  the  ravine, 
one  or  two  peasants  were  busied,  though  it  was  near  midnight, 
silently  mowing  the  grass ;  I  suppose  both  because  of  the  cool- 
ness of  the  night,  and  to  secure  their  hay  during  the  pleasant 
weather.  A  beautiful  grey  mist,  like  the  moonlight  itself,  lay 
upon  the  fields,  and  the  sweep  of  the  scythes  along  the  wet  grass 
was  the  only  sound  that  rose  upon  the  perfect  stillness  of  the 
atmosphere,  save  the  distant  subterranean  thunder  of  the  falls  of 
the  Dala,  buried  in  the  depths  of  the  chasm.  Looking  down  into 
those  depths  amidst  the  din  and  fury  of  the  waters,  the  sublimity 
of  the  impression  is  greatly  heightened  by  the  obscurity ;  and 
then  looking  upward  along  the  forest  of  dark  verdure  that  clothes 
the  overhanging  mountain,  how  still,  how  beautiful  in  the  moon- 
light are  those  rising  terraces  of  trees  !  They  seem  as  if  they 
loo  had  an  intelligent  spirit,  and  were  watching  the  night  and 


32  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  vn. 

enjoying  its  beauty.  My  friend  was  sound  asleep  at  the  inn. 
Who  was  wisest,  he  or  I  ?  Considering  the  fatigues  of  the  day, 
and  those  to  be  encountered  on  the  morrow,  there  was  great  wis- 
dom in  the  act  of  sleeping.  But  then  again  it  is  to  be  considered 
that  any  night  is  good  for  sleeping,  while  such  a  night  as  this  for 
waking  might  not  again  be  enjoyed,  with  all  its  accessories,  in  a 
man's  lifetime. 

These  laborers,  that  were  but  making  hay,  could  toil  all  night, 
and  the  day  after  go  to  their  work  as  usual.  But  all  the  hay  in 
Switzerland  would  not  be  worth  the  impulse  that  might  be  gained 
from  such  a  night  as  this,  were  the  soul  only  prepared  for  it. 
Night  and  the  stars  !  Silence  and  voices  deep,  calling  the  soul 
to  hear  them,  not  the  sense  !  What  music  were  it,  if  those  living 
lights,  waxing  in  splendor,  would  let  us  hear,  as  Dante  saith, 
"  the  chiming  of  their  angelic  bells." 

"  One  sun  by  day,  by  night  ten  thousand  shine, 
And  light  us  deep  into  the  Deity : 
How  boundless  in  magnificence  and  might ! 
0  what  a  confluence  of  ethereal  fires 
From  urns  unnumbered,  down  the  steep  of  heaven ! 
My  heart  at  once  it  humbles  and  exalts, 
Lays  it  in  dust,  and  calls  it  to  the  skies. 
Bright  legions  swarm  unseen,  and  sing,  unheard 
By  mortal  ear,  the  glorious  Architect, 
In  this,  his  universal  Temple,  hung 
With  lustres,  with  innumerable  lights, 
That  shed  religion  on  the  soul,  at  once 
The  Temple  arid  the  Preacher  ! 

Who  sees  Him  not, 

Nature's  controller,  author,  guide,  and  end  ? 
Who  turns  his  eye  on  nature's  midnight  face 
But  must  inquire, — What  hand  behind  the  scene, 
What  arm  Almighty  put  these  wheeling  globes 
In  motion,  and  wound  up  the  vast  machine  ? 
Who  rounded  in  his  palm  these  spacious  orbs  ? 
Who  bowled  them  flaming  through  the  dark  profound, 
Numerous  as  glittering  gems  of  morning  dew, 
Or  sparks  from  populous  cities  in  a  blaze, 
And  set  the  bosom  of  old  Night  on  fire  ?" 

What  grand  lines  are  these  !  The  sublimity  of  Young  rises 
sometimes  higher  than  that  of  Dante,  as  his  devotion  is  more  direct 


CHAP,  vii.]  NIGHT  THOUGHTS.  33 

and  scriptural.  The  grandeur  of  that  image  or  conception  of 
the  spacious  orbs  bowled  flaming  through  the  dark  profound,  nume- 
rous as  glittering  gems  of  morning  dew,  could  scarcely  be  exceed- 
ed. It  is  like  the  image  of  the  same  great  Poet,  of  Old  Time 
sternly  driving  his  ploughshare  o'er  Creation.  The  Poem  of  the 
Night  Thoughts  is  full  of  great  and  rich  materials  for  the  mind 
and  heart ;  it  is  one  of  the  best  demonstrations  in  our  language 
of  the  absurdity  of  that  strange  idea  of  Dr.  Johnson,  that  devo- 
tion is  not  a  fit  subject  for  poetry  !  Let  the  Christian  stand  at 
midnight  beneath  the  stars,  with  mountains  round  about  him,  and 
if  the  influences  of  the  scene  are  rightly  appreciated,  though  he 
may  be  no  Poet,  he  will  feel  that  Prayer,  Praise,  and  the  highest 
Poetry  are  one. 

"  In  every  storm  that  either  frowns  or  falls 
What  an  asylum  has  the  soul  in  prayer  ! 
And  what  a  Fane  is  this,  in  which  to  pray ! 
And  what  a  God  must  dwell  in  such  a  Fane  !" 

NIGHT  THOUGHTS,  IX. 


PART  II. 


34  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGPRAU.  [CHAP.  vm. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Baths  of  Leuk. 

THE  village  or  hamlet  of  the  baths* is  a  place  of  about  three 
hundred  inhabitants,  whose  clusters  of  wooden  nests  hang  to 
the  mountains  at  an  elevation  of  more  than  4500  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea.  The  bathing  houses  and  inns  are  spacious, 
crowded  for  some  six  weeks  in  July  and  August,  deserted  almost 
all  the  rest  of  the  year,  and  shut  up  and  abandoned  from  October 
to  May.  Three  times  since  their  establishment  in  the  sixteenth 
century  they  have  been  overwhelmed  by  Avalanches,  though  to 
the  eye  of  a  stranger  in  the  summer,  their  position  does  not  seem 
to  be  of  imminent  peril.  But  the  scenery  is  of  an  extreme 
grandeur,  a  glorious  region,  where  the  sublimities  of  nature  com- 
bine to  elevate  the  mind,  at  the  same  time  that  the  body  comes 
to  be  healed  of  its  infirmities.  These  healing  springs,  wherever 
they  occur,  are  proofs  of  the  Divine  benevolence ;  may  they  not 
be  regarded  as  peculiarly  so,  when  placed  in  the  midst  of  scenes 
so  adapted  to  raise  the  thoughts  to  heaven  ? 

But  what  invalid  here  ever  thinks  of  the  scenery  who  has  to 
spend  eight  hours  a  day  immersed  and  steaming  in  hot  water  ? 
The  grand  spring  bursts  forth  like  a  little  river  close  to  the  bath- 
house, of  as  great  heat  as  124  Fahrenheit,  and  supplies  the  great 
baths,  which  are  divided  into  wooden  tanks,  about  twenty  feet 
square,  four  in  each  building,  where  men,  women,  and  children 
bathe  indiscriminately,  clad  in  long  woollen  gowns.  There  they 
sit  for  hours  in  the  water,  some  two  or  three  weeks  together,  four 
hours  at  breakfast  and  four  hours  after  dinner.  It  is  very  droll 
and  very  disgusting  to  look  at  them,  floating  about,  such  a  motley 
crew,  in  such  a  vulgar  mixture,  some  fifteen  or  twenty  in  each 
tank.  It  is  surprising  that  persons  of  either  sex,  with  any  refine- 
ment of  feeling,  can  submit  to  such  a  process,  so  coarse,  so  pub- 


CHAP,  viii.]  BATHS  OF  LEUK.  35 

lie,  so  indelicate  ;  but  they  say  that  this  social  system  is  resorted 
to,  because  of  the  tedium  of  being  obliged  to  spend  six  or  eight 
hours  a  day  in  the  water ;  so  they  make  a  regular  soiree  of  it,  a 
sort  of  Fourier  affair,  having  all  things  common,  and  entertaining 
each  other  as  much  as  possible. 

The  traveller  stands  on  a  wooden  bridge,  and  gazes  at  the 
watery  community  in  amazement,  looking  narrowly  for  fins ;  but 
he  sees  nothing  but  groups  of  human  heads,  emerging  and  bob- 
bing about  like  the  large  corks  to  a  fishing  net,  among  which  are 
floating  a  score  of  little  wooden  tables  with  books,  newspapers,  and 
so  forth,  for  the  occupation  of  said  heads,  or  tea  and  coffee  with 
toast,  or  a  breakfast  a  la  fourchette,  for  the  supply  of  the  bodies 
belonging  to  them.  Some  are  reading,  others  amphibiously 
lounging,  others  coquetting  at  leisure  with  a  capricious  appetite, 
others  playing  chess,  all  up  to  the  chin  in  hot  water.  Inveterate 
chess-players  would  make  excellent  patients  in  these  baths. 
Without  some  occupation  of  that  nature,  one  would  think  there 
must  be  no  little  danger  of  falling  asleep  and  getting  drowned. 
One  of  the  bathing  houses  is  for  the  poor,  who  are  admitted  free 
of  expense ;  and  here  it  is  not  so  surprising  to  see  them  all  par- 
boiling together ;  but  that  the  better  rank  should  suffer  such  a 
system  of  vulgarity  and  publicity,  seems  incredible. 

It  is  principally  from  France  and  Switzerland  that  the  visitors 
come,  and  they  have  to  be  steeped  three  weeks  in  the  water  for 
cure.  Eight  hours  daily  in  the  baths  and  two  in  bed,  together 
with  the  eight  or  ten  spent  in  sleep,  nearly  finish  the  twenty-four 
of  our  diurnal  existence.  There  are  no  provisions  for  private 
baths,  so  that  the  necessity  of  making  a  tete-a-tete  of  some  fifteen 
or  twenty  together  is  inexorable.  And,  after  all,  there  may  be 
no  more  want  of  refinement  in  a  social  Neptunian  pic-nic  of  this 
sort,  than  there  is  in  tripping  over  the  white  sands  at  Brighton, 
or  floating  in  the  surf  on  the  beach  at  Newport,  Naiad-like,  in 
companies. 


36  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  ix. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Pass  of  the  Gemmi.     Trials  of  Faith. 

FROM  the  baths  we  set  our  faces,  and  my  companion  the  face  of 
his  mule,  to  traverse  the  pass  of  the  Gemmi,  in  many  respects 
the  grandest  and  most  extraordinary  pass  in  all  Switzerland.  If 
the  builders  of  Babel  had  discovered  this  mountain,  methinks 
they  would  have  abandoned  their  work,  and  set  themselves  to 
blast  a  corkscrew  gallery  in  the  rock,  by  which  to  reach  heaven. 
No  language  can  describe  the  sublime  impression  of  its  frowning 
circular  ridges,  its  rocky,  diademic  spheroids,  if  I  may  so  speak, 
sweeping  up,  one  after  another,  into  the  skies.  The  whole  valley 
is  surrounded  by  ranges  of  regal  crags,  but  the  mountain  of  the 
Gemmi,  apparently  absolutely  inaccessible,  is  the  last  point  to 
which  you  would  turn  for  an  outlet.  A  side  gorge  that  sweeps 
up  to  the  glaciers  and  snowy  pyramids  flashing  upon  you  in  the 
opposite  direction,  is  the  route  which  you  suppose  your  guide  is 
going  to  take,  and  visions  of  pedestrians  perilously  scaling  icy 
precipices,  or  struggling  up  to  the  middle  through  ridges  of  snow, 
begin  to  surround  you,  as  the  prospects  of  your  own  experience  in 
this  day's  expedition.  So  convinced  was  I  that  the  path  must  go 
out  in  that  direction,  that  I  took  a  short  cut,  which  I  conceived 
would  bring  me  again  into  the  mule-path  at  a  point  under  the 
glaciers,  but  after  scaling  precipices,  and  getting  lost  in  a  wood 
of  firs  in  the  valley,  I  was  glad  to  rejoin  my  friend  with  the 
guide,  and  to  clamber  on  in  pure  ignorance  and  wonder.  The 
valley  is  what  is  called  a  perfect  cul-de-sac,  having  no  opening 
except  where  you  entered  from  the  Valley  of  the  Rhone,  and 
running  up  blunt,  a  little  beyond  the  Baths  of  Leuk,  against  one 
of  the  loftiest  perpendicular  barriers  of  rock  in  all  the  Alpine 
recesses.  It  was  therefore  not  possible  to  imagine  where  we 
should  emerge,  and  not  being  able  to  understand  clearly  the  dia- 


CHAP,  ix.]  TRIALS  OF  FAITH.  37 

lect  of  our  guide,  we  began  to  think  that  he  did  not  himself  know 
the  way. 

Now  what  a  striking  symbol  is  this,  of  things  that  sometimes 
take  place  in  our  spiritual  pilgrimage.  We  are  often  brought  to 
a  stand,  hedged  up  and  hemmed  in  by  the  providence  of  God,  so 
that  there  seems  no  way  out.  A  man  is  sometimes  thrown  into 
difficulties,  in  which  he  sits  down  beginning  to  despair,  and  says 
to  himself,  Well,  this  time  it  is  all  over  with  me  ;  like  Sterne's 
Starling,  or  worse,  like  Bunyan's  Man  in  the  Cage,  he  says,  I 
can't  get  out.  Then,  when  God  has  driven  him  from  all  self- 
confidence  and  self- resource,  a  door  opens  in  the  wall,  and  he 
rises  up  and  walks  at  liberty,  praising  God. 

Sometimes  he  says  within  himself,  "  This  cannot  be  the  path 
of  duty ;  the  mountain  is  too  high,  too  inaccessible ;  there  is  no 
possibility  of  scaling  it ;  the  undertaking,  Sir  Conscience,  that 
you  point  out  to  me  by  God's  Word,  is  desperate.  The  path 
must  go  this  other  way  ;  I  am  sure  it  must."  Alas,  poor  pilgrim, 
try  it,  if  you  dare !  Leave  the  Guide,  whose  dialect  you  think 
you  can't  understand,  though  Conscience  all  the  while  under- 
stands it,  and  too  soon  you  will  get  lost  amidst  woods  and  preci- 
pice.s  ;  and  well  for  you  it  will  be,  if  you  do  not  fall  over  some 
fearful  crag,  or  wander  so  far  and  so  irretrievably,  that  no  longer 
the  voice  of  your  Guide  can  be  heard,  and  you  stumble  upon  the 
dark  mountains,  till  you  are  lost  in  the  congregation  of  the  dead. 
Remember  By  Path  Meadow,  and  Giant  Despair's  Castle,  and 
come  back,  yea,  haste  back,  if  you  are  going  where  the  Word 
of  God  does  not  go  before  you.  Let  your  feet  be  towards  the 
King's  highway,  and  the  mountain  you  will  find  is  accessible, 
and  the  Lions  are  chained. 

Shall  I  pursue  the  simile  any  farther  ?  I  will ;  for  it  makes 
me  think  of  the  course  of  some  men,  who  will  not  suffer  them- 
selves  to  be  led  across  the  great  mysteries  of  God's  Word,  but 
endeavor  to  wind  their  way  out  of  the  gulf  without  scaling  the 
mountain.  They  say  it  is  utterly  impossible,  it  is  irrational,  it 
cannot  be,  there  must  be  some  other  mode  of  explaining  these 
passages,  than  that  of  admitting  the  stupendous,  inexplicable 
mystery  and  miracle,  which  they  bear  upon  the  face  of  them. 
So  they  would  carry  you  round  by  side  galleries,  across  drifts  of 


38  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  ix. 

snowy  reasoning,  as  cold  and  as  deceitful  as  the  crusts  of  glitter- 
ing  ice,  that  among  the  Alps  cover  great  fissures,  where,  if  you 
step,  you  sink  and  are  out  of  sight  for  ever.  Keep  to  the  ap- 
pointed path,  over  the  mountain,  for  there  alone  are  you*  safe. 
It  is  the  path  of  Faith,  faith  in  God's  Word,  faith  in  God's  mys- 
teries, faith  in  God's  Spirit,  faith  in  God's  Son.  Sometimes  it  is 
the  path  of  Faith  without  reasoning,  and  you  must  take  it,  be- 
cause God  says  so ;  indeed  that  great  Word,  GOD  SAITH,  is  the 
highest  of  all  reasoning,  and  if  your  reasoning  goes  against  it, 
your  reasoning  is  a  lie. 

Now  have  you  tried  your  own  way,  and  found  it  deceitful  and 
ruinous  ?  And  are  you  ready  to  follow  your  Guide,  as  an  ignorant 
little  child,  in  all  simplicity  ?  This  is  well,  and  God  sometimes 
suffers  us  to  have  our  own  way,  to  take  it  for  a  while,  that  we 
may  find  by  sore  experience  that  his  way  is  the  best.  Your  path 
seems  to  be  shut  up,  but  if  he  points  it  out,  you  may  be  sure  that 
he  will  open  it.  As  to  the  children  of  Israel,  when  brought 
to  a  stand  at  the  verge  of  the  Red  Sea,  so  he  says  to  you,  Go 
forward ! 

The  mysteries  in  God's  Word,  and  the  practical  difficulties  in 
our  Pilgrimage,  are  like  these  mountain-passes.  If  you  refuse 
to  clamber,  you  must  stay  in  the  gulf,  or  go,  by  apostasy,  back- 
ward, for  there  is  no  other  way  out.  And  if  you  will  not  accept 
the  path,  walking  by  Faith,  not  Sight,  then  you  will  never  see 
the  glory  that  is  to  be  enjoyed  on  the  summit.  The  great  funda- 
mental truths  of  God's  Word,  the  Resurrection,  the  Atonement, 
the  Triune  Mysteries  of  the  Godhead,  the  Eternity  and  Provi- 
dence of  God,  the  Deity  and  Grace  of  Christ,  the  Work  of  the 
Holy  Spirit, — these  are  all  mountain  passes,  to  be  crossed  only 
by  Faith  ;  but  when  you  so  cross  them,  then  what  glory  !  O  what 
glory  !  So  you  rise  to  Heaven  ;  while  they  who  deny  them,  are 
creeping  and  feeling  their  way  as  dull  materialists,  blindfold  grop- 
ing in  the  gulf  below. 

Well !  let  us  go  on,  after  our  digression,  in  the  strange  path  of 
the  Gemmi.  My  steady  companion,  in 'this  case,  answered  to 
the  principle  of  Faith,  and  I,  of  self-willed  Reason.  But  I  came 
back,  before  I  got  beyond  reach  of  his  powerful  voice  shouting 
to  me,  and  we  advanced  together. 


CHAP,  x.]  PASS  OF  THE  GEMMI. 


CHAPTER  X. 

Pass  of  the  Gemmi.     Successive  splendors  of  the  view. 

IT  is  a  scene  as  singular  as  it  is  sublime.  You  inarch  up  towards 
the  base  of  the  mountain ;  you  look  above  you,  around  you,  but 
there  is  no  way ;  you  are  utterly  at  a  loss.  You  still  advance 
to  within  three  or  four  feet  of  the  smooth  perpendicular  rock,  and 
still  there  is  no  outlet.  Is  there  any  cave,  or  subterranean  pas- 
sage,  or  are  you  to  be  hoisted,  mules  and  all,  by  some  invisible 
machinery  over  the  crags  ?  Thus  musing,  your  guide  suddenly 
turns  to  the  left,  and  begins  a  zigzag  ascent,  where  you  never 
dreamed  it  was  possible,  over  a  steep  slope  of  crumbling  rocky 
fragments,  that  are  constantly  falling  from  above,  by  which  at 
length  you  reach  a  ridgy  winding  shelf  fcr  wrinkle  on  the  face  of 
the  mountain,  not  visible  from  below.  Here  you  might  have 
seen  from  the  valley  parties  of  travellers  circling  the  rocky  wall, 
as  if  they  were  clinging  to  it  sideways  by  some  supernatural 
power,  and  you  may  see  others  far  above  you  coming  down. 
Sometimes  sick  persons  are  borne  on  litters  down  these  preci- 
pices to  visit  the  baths,  having  their  eyes  blindfolded  to  avoid  see- 
ing the  perils  of  the  way. 

It  is  a  lovely  day,  most  lovely.  Far  and  near  you  can  see 
with  dazzling  distinctness ;  trees  and  crags,  streams,  towns,  mea- 
dowslopes,  mountain  outlines,  and  snowy  summits.  And  now  every 
step  upwards  increases  your  wonder  and  admiration.  You  rise 
from  point  to  point,  commanding  a  wider  view  at  every  turn. 
You  overhang  the  most  terrible  precipices.  You  scale  the  face 
of  crags,  where  narrow  galleries  have  been  blasted  like  grooves, 
leaving  the  mountain  arching  and  beetling  over  you  above,  while 
there  is  no  sort  of  barrier  between  you  and  the  almost  immea- 
surable gulf  below.  It  is  a  passage  which  tries  a  man's  nerves. 
My  companion  did  not  dare  to  ride,  but  dismounted,  and  placing 


40  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  x. 

the  guide  outside  between  him  and  the  outer  edge  of  the  grooves, 
crept  along,  leaning  against  the  mountains,  and  steadying  himself 
with  his  hands.  The  tremendous  depths,  without  fence  or  pro- 
tection, made  him  sick  and  dizzy.  Once  or  twice  I  had  the 
same  sensation,  but  generally  enjoyed  the  sense  of  danger,  which 
adds  so  greatly  to  the  element  of  sublimity. 

This  ascent,  so  perpendicular,  yet  by  its  zigzags  so  gradual, 
affords  a  constant  change  and  enlargement  of  view.  The  little 
village  and  baths  of  Leuk  look  like  a  parcel  of  children's  toys 
in  wax,  it  is  so  far  below  you.  Now  you  can  see  clear  across 
the  Dala  valley  with  its  villages  and  mountains,  clear  down  into 
the  valley  of  the  Simplon.  Now  the  vast  snowy  range  of  moun- 
tains on  the  Italian  side  begins  to  be  visible.  Now  you  can  dis- 
tinctly count  their  summits,  you  may  tell  all  their  names,  you 
gaze  at  them  as  a  Chaldean  shepherd  at  the  beauty  of  the  stars, 
you  can  follow  their  ranges  from  Monte  Rosa  and  the  Velan  even 
to  the  Grand  St.  Bernard,  where  the  hoary  giant  keeps  guard 
over  the  lovely  Val  D'Aoste,  and  locks  the  kingdom  of  Italy. 
How  dazzling,  how  beautiful  are  their  forms ;  verily,  you  could 
sit  and  watch  them  all  day,  if  the  sun  would  stay  with  them,  and 
not  tire  of  their  study. 

But  now  a  zigzag  takes  you  again  in  the  opposite  direction, 
and  again  you  enter  a  tremendous  gorge,  by  a  blasted  hanging 
gallery,  where  the  mountains  on  either  side  frown  like  two  black 
thunder-clouds  about  to  discharge  their  artillery.  On  the  other 
side  of  this  awful  gulf,  the  daring  chamois  hunters  have  perched 
a  wooden  box  for  a  sort  of  watch-tower  beneath  a  shelf  in  the 
precipice,  utterly  inaccessible  except  by  a  long  pole  from  beneath, 
with  a  few  pegs  running  through  it,  in  imitation  of  a  dead  pine. 
An  inexperienced  chamois  might  take  it  for  an  eagle's  nest,  and 
here  a  man  may  lie  concealed  with  his  musket,  till  he  has  op- 
portunity to  mark  his  prey.  How  majestically  that  bird  below 
us  cleaves  the  air,  and  comes  sailing  up  the  gorge,  and  now  cir- 
cles the  gigantic  cliffs  of  the  Geinmi,  and  sweeps  away  from  us 
into  the  sky  !  Would  it  not  be  a  glorious  privilege  to  be  able  in 
like  manner  ourselves  to  sail  off  into  liquid  air,  and  mount  up  to 
heaven  ?  Oh  that  I  had  wings  like  a  dove,  then  would  I  fly  away 
and  be  at  rest.  So  we  shall  be  able  to  soar,  from  glorious  peak 


CHAP,  x.]  REMARKABLE  ECHO.  41 

to  peak,  from  one  part  of  God's  universe  to  another,  when  clothed 
upon  with  our  spiritual  body,  our  house  which  is  from  heaven. 

Where  we  stand  now  there  is  a  remarkable  echo  from  the 
depths  of  the  gorge  and  the  opposite  face  of  the  mountain.  You 
hear  the  sound  of  your  footsteps  and  your  voices,  as  if  another 
party  were  travelling  on  the  other  side.  You  shout,  and  your 
words  are  twice  distinctly  reverberated  and  repeated.  In  some 
places  this  Echo  is  as  if  there  were  a  subterranean  concert, 
muffled  and  deep,  of  strange  beings,  creatures  of  wild  dreams, 
the  Seven  Sleepers  awakened,  or  people  talking  in  a  madhouse. 
The  travellers  shout,  then  hold  their  breath,  and  look  at  one 
another,  and  listen  with  a  sense  of  childish  wonder  to  the  strange, 
clear,  bold  answers,  out-spoken  across  the  grim  black  gorge  in 
the  mountain.  The  Poet  Wordsworth  seems  to  have  heard  the 
full  cry  of  a  hunting  pack,  rebellowing  to  the  bark  of  a  little 
dog,  that  took  it  into  its  head  to  wake  the  Echo.  Thence  came 
that  fine  sonnet  from  his  tour  on  the  Continent. 

"  WHAT  Beast  of  Chase  hath  broken  from  the  cover  ? 
Stern  GEMMI  listens  to  as  full  a  cry, 
As  multitudinous  a  harmony, 
As  e'er  did  ring  the  heights  of  Latmos  over, 
When,  from  the  soft  couch  of  her  sleeping  Lover, 
Upstarting,  Cynthia  skimmed  the  mountain  dew 
In  keen  pursuit,  and  gave,  where'er  she  flew, 
Impetuous  motion  to  the  stars  above  her. 
A  solitary  wolf-dog,  ranging  on 

Through  the  bleak  concave,  wakes  this  wondrous  chime 
Of  aery  voices  locked  in  unison, — 
Faint— far  off— near — deep — solemn  and  sublime  ! 
So  from  the  body  of  a  single  deed 
A  thousand  ghostly  fears  and  haunting  thoughts  proceed !" 

This  last  comparison  unexpectedly  reveals  one  of  the  most 
impressive  thoughts  ever  bodied  forth  by  Wordsworth's  Imagina- 
tion. There  is  an  eternal  Echo  both  to  the  evil  and  the  good  of 
our  actions.  The  Universe  is  as  a  Gallery,  to  take  up  the  report 
and  send  it  back  upon  us,  in  music  sweet  as  the  celestial  harmo- 
nies, or  in  crashing  thunder  of  wrath  upon  the  soul.  Evil  deeds, 
above  all,  have  their  Echo.  The  man  may  be  quiet  for  a  season, 
and  hear  no  voice,  but  Conscience  is  yet  to  be  roused,  and  he  is 


42  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAtr.  [CHAP.  x. 

to  stand  as  in  the  centre  of  Eternity,  and  hear  the  reverberation 
coming  back  upon  him,  in  Remorse,  Judgment,  Retribution.  The 
reproduction  of  himself  upon  himself  would  alone  be  retribution, 
the  reverberation  of  his  evil  character  and  actions.  Every  man 
is  to  meet  this,  whose  evil  is  not  purged  away  by  Christ ;  whose 
life  is  not  pardoned,  whose  soul  is  not  cleansed,  whose  heart  is 
not  penitent  and  made  new  by  Divine  Grace. 

So  neither  the  evil  nor  the  good  that  men  do  is  ever  interred 
with  their  bones,  but  lives  after  them.  There  is  always  going 
on  this  process  of  reverberation,  reproduction,  resurrection. 
Wherefore  let  the  wicked  man  remember,  when  he  speaks  or 
acts  an  evil  thing,  though  in  present  secresy  and  silence,  that  he 
is  yet  to  hear  the  Echo  from  Eternity. 

"  Now !     It  is  gone !     Our  brief  hours  travel  post ; 
Each  with  its  thought  or  deed,  its  why  or  how. 
But  know,  each  parting  hour  gives  up  a  ghost, 
To  dwell  within  thee,  an  Eternal  Now." r 

You  continue  your  zigzag  ascent,  wondering  where  it  can  at 
length  end.  Your  mule  treads  with  the  utmost  unconcern  on 
the  very  brink  of  the  outjutting  crags,  with  her  head  and  neck 
projecting  over  into  the  gulf,  which  is  so  deep  and  so  sheer  a 
perpendicular,  that  in  some  places  a  plumb  line  might  be  thrown 
into  the  valley  below,  near  1600  feet,  almost  without  touching 
the  rock.  It  makes  you  dizzy  to  look  down  into  the  valley  from 
a  much  less  height  than  this,  but  still  you  ascend,  and  still  com- 
mand a  wider  and  more  magnificent  view  of  the  Snowy  Alps  on 
the  Italian  side  of  the  Canton  du  Valais.  You  are  now  on  a 
level  with  those  hanging  lines  of  misty  light,  so  distant  and  so 
beautiful,  floating  over  me  valley  of  the  Simplon,  where  the  vapor 
is  suspended  in  hazy  layers,  just  beneath  the  limit  of  perpetual 
snow.  Above  are  the  snow-shining  mountains,  below,  the  grey 
crags,  forests  of  fir,  pasturages,  chalets,  farms,  castles,  and  vil- 
lages. 

*«  Fancy  hath  flung  for  me  an  airj  bridge 
Across  thy  long,  deep  Valley,  furious  Rhone ! 
Arch,  that  here  rests  upon  the  granite  ridge 
Of  Monte  Rosa—  there  on  frailer  stone 


CHAP,  x.]  SUMMIT  OF  THE  PASS.  43 

Of  secondary  birth — the  Jungfrau's  cone ; 
And. from  that  Arch,  down  looking  on  the  Vale, 
The  aspect  I  behold  of  every  zone  ; 
A  sea  of  foliage  tossing  with  the  gale, 
Blithe  Autumn's  purple  crown,  and  Winter's  icy  mail." 

WORDSWORTH. 

And  now  at  length  you  have  accomplished  the  ascent,  and 
reached  the  highest  point  of  the  pass  of  the  Gemmi.  You  turn 
with  reluctance  from  one  of  the  grandest  views  in  Switzerland, 
though  you  have  been  enjoying  it  for  hours ;  but  it  is  always  a 
grief  to  quit  a  chain  of  snowy  Alps  in  the  landscape,  for  they 
are  like  a  wide  view  of  the  ocean ;  it  thrills  you  with  delight 
when  you  come  upon  them.  You  emerge  from  the  gorge,  pass 
the  little  shed,  which  would  be  somewhat  better  than  an  umbrella 
in  a  storm,  walk  a  few  steps,  and  what  a  contrast !  What  a 
scene  of  winter  and  of  savage  wildness  and  desolation !  You 
are  7200  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Stupendous  walls  and 
needles  of  bare  rock  are  shooting  into  the  sky,  adown  whose 
slopes  vast  fields  of  ever-changing  snow  sweep  restlessly,  feed- 
ing a  black  lake  in  the  centre  of  storm-beaten  ridges  of  naked 
limestone.  A  vast  pyramid  of  pure  white  snow  rises  so  near  you 
on  the  right,  from  behind  these  intervening  ridges  of  bare  rock, 
that  it  seems  as  if  a  few  minutes'  walk  might  plunge  you  into  the 
midst  of  it.  If  you  were  to  undertake  it,  you  would  find  it  a 
day's  work,  across  frightful  ravines,  and  over  mountains.  The 
desolation  increases  as  you  descend,  till  you  come  to  the  solitary 
auberge  built  upon  the  ruins  of  an  avalanche,  the  scene,  it  is 
said,  of  one  of  the  German  poet  Werner's  tragedies. 

You  are  suspicious  here,  though  glad  enough  to  have  come  to 
a  place  of  refreshment,  because  Mr.  Murray,  whose  Guide-book 
is  the  Bible  of  most  Englishmen  on  the  continent,  has  put  into 
his  pages  the  warning  that  the  landlord  of  this  inn  is  not  well 
spoken  of.  You  naturally  expect  to  meet  a  surly,  ill-looking 
fellow,  who  is  going  to  cheat  you,  and  who  might  on  occasion 
murder  you;  but  you  find  a  pleasant  looking  man,  who  speaks 
pleasantly,  treats  you  kindly,  and  charges  no  more  for  your  fare 
than  it  is  fairly  worth ;  and  you  pass  from  the  place  exclaiming 
against  the  extreme  injustice  which  has  thus,  upon  the  chance 


44  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  x. 

report  perhaps  of  some  solitary,  well-fed,  English  grumbler, 
affixed  a  libel  to  the  name  of  this  landlord,  which  is  sure  to  pre- 
judice every  traveller  against  him  beforehand. 

Well  it  is  for  the  poor  man,  that  travellers  who  have  passed 
the  Gemmi  have  a  sharp  appetite,  and  cannot  eat  fossils,  and 
that  there  is  no  other  inn  but  his  in  the  desolate  pass  of  the  moun- 
tain. This  being  the  case,  they  eat,  and  afterwards  survey  the 
character  of  the  landlord  in  better  humor,  and  then,  having  got 
ready  to  be  cheated,  it  is  a  most  agreeable  surprise  to  find  that 
there  is  no  cheat  at  all,  though  7000  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
sea  might  almost  justify  it,  for  who  could  be  expected  to  keep  such 
an  inn  without  some  inordinate  compensation  ?  There  is  nothing 
that  travellers  ought  to  pay  more  cheerfully,  than  high  charges 
in  such  places ;  but  from  the  manner  in  which  John  Bull  some- 
times complains,  you  would  think  he  was  a  very  poor  man,  close 
upon  the  verge  of  his  last  farthing.  I  have  seen  an  Englishman 
in  a  storm  of  rage  for  a  charge  in  Switzerland,  which  would 
have  been  three  times  as  high  in  his  own  country,  besides  that 
there  he  would  have  been  obliged  to  pay  the  servants  in  addition, 
no  little  proportion  of  what  here  the  meal  itself  cost  him. 


CHAP,  xi.]  CANTON  BERNE.  45 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Canton  Berne.     Scripture  on  the  houses.     Truth  a  gooa  talisman. 

SOON  after  quitting  the  inn,  the  pasturage  vegetation  commences, 
and  you  cross  from  the  Roman  Catholic  Canton  du  Valais  into 
the  Protestant  Canton  Berne ;  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck 
with  the  great  contrast  between  the  two  regions,  when  you  enter 
the  villages.  From  the  poverty,  filth,  and  ignorance  in  the  Val- 
ley of  the  Rhone  you  pass  to  abodes  of  comfort,  neatness,  and 
intelligence.  A  traveller  cannot  shut  his  eyes  against  this  con- 
trast. He  may  have  heard  it  described,  and  may  have  set  it 
down  to  the  score  of  religious  prejudice  exaggerating  the  facts  ; 
but  he  finds  the  contrast  to  be  an  undeniable  reality.  Neither 
can  he  tell  how  much  of  this  difference  arises  from  physical 
causes,  the  Valley  of  the  Rhone  being  subject  to  calamities  and 
diseases  from  which  the  Canton  Berne  is  happily  free ;  nor 
how  much  is  owing  to  the  contrasted  system  of  religion  and  edu- 
cation. The  fact  is  quite  beyond  controversy,  that  the  popula- 
tion of  the  Canton  Berne  are  far  superior  in  thrift,  intelligence, 
and  prosperity  to  that  of  the  Canton  du  Valais. 

I  cannot  say  that  Protestant  grass  is  any  greener  than  Romish, 
or  that  heretical  cattle  are  any  fatter  than  those  on  the  Pope's 
side  of  the  mountain  ;  but  the  vegetation  began  speedily  to  luxu- 
riate as  we  descended,  large  firs  began  to  clothe  the  crags,  herds 
of  cows  and  oxen  were  pasturing,  and  the  ridges  of  rock  so 
bare  and  perpendicular  on  the  other  side  the  pass,  on  this  were 
hidden  under  thick  forests.  The  mountains  are  split  asunder  in 
deep  ravines,  immense  jagged  chasms,  which  are  fringed  with 
rich  verdure,  and  the  shade  into  which  you  enter  is  so  deep,  that 
it  looks  like  evening,  though  the  sun  has  not  much  passed  the 
meridian.  The  side-views  of  the  Oeschinen  and  Gasteren  val- 
leys, one  on  your  right,  the  other  on  your  left,  as  you  descend  to- 


46  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xi. 

wards  Kandersteg,  are  exceedingly  impressive,  both  for  their 
savage  grandeur  and  beauty.  On  one  side  you  seem  to  look 
through  the  torn  rock-rifts  of  the  pass,  and  over  forest  crowned 
projections  of  the  mountains,  into  the  icy  palace  of  Winter  where 
he  reigns  alone  ;  frosted  sparkling  peaks,  and  icy -sheeted  crags, 
and  masses  of  pure  white  snow,  seen  through  the  firs,  make  a 
singular  wild  contrast  with  the  verdant  scenery,  that  rises  imme- 
diately around  you,  and  is  spread  out  below  you.  On  the  other 
side,  the  path  that  takes  you  into  the  Oeschinen  valley  winds  over 
green  grassy  slopes  to  introduce  you  to  a  lovely  lake  encircled 
by  precipices  and  glaciers,  at  the  foot  of  the  Blumlis  Alps. 

And  now  you  arrive  at  Kandersteg,  a  scattered  village  in  the 
midst  of  a  smooth  grassy  expanse  of  table  land  at  the  foot  of  the 
Gemmi,  about  3300  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  The  change 
in  the  aspect  of  the  hamlets,  from  the  region  where  you  have 
been  travelling,  attracts  your  notice.  Some  of  the  villages  look 
like  New  England.  Nature  is  more  kindly  than  in  the  Valley  of 
the  Rhone,  and  the  people  have  endeavored  to  keep  pace  with 
her  more  equally.  They  are  certainly  better  to  do  in  the  world, 
and  under  the  Canton  Berne,  in  a  freer,  more  cheerful,  less  re- 
pressing government. 

In  place  of  the  symbol  of  the  cross,  or  the  statue  of  the  Virgin 
in  her  niche,  or  the  picture  of  the  Mother  and  Child,  the  traveller 
may  see,  as  in  some  of  the  old  houses  in  Edinburgh,  sentences 
from  the  Scriptures  piously  inscribed  over  the  doors,  or  across 
the  outside  walls  of  the  cottages.  It  has  a  most  pleasing  effect 
upon  the  mind,  although  doubtless  many  of  the  inhabitants  think 
no  more  of  their  meaning,  than  the  Jews  did  of  that  of  the  scrip- 
tural inscriptions  on  their  broad  phylacteries.  Yet  it  is  pleasant 
to  see  a  rim  of  sentences  from  the  Word  of  God  running  round 
the  hamlet,  and  sometimes  a  stray  thought  may  be  caught  by  it 
and  made  devotional.  If  there  could  be  an  outward  talisman, 
making  the  house  secure  from  evil,  forbidding  the  entrance  of 
bad  spirits, 

"  Driving  far  off  each  thing  of  sin  and  guilt," 

sweetly  reminding  intelligent  beings  of  duty,  and  making  sacred 
things  inanimate,  this  were  it.     Girt  round  about  with  Truth, 


CHAP.  M.J  CHARM  OF  BIBLE  TRUTH.  47 

what  defence  could  equal  it  ?  No  sprinkling  with  holy  water,  no 
spittle  of  priests,  no  anointing  with  oil,  no  forms  of  exorcism, 
could  so  frighten  the  wandering  imps  of  darkness.  Then,  too, 
there  is  no  superstition  connected  with  it ;  it  is  justified  by,  and  in 
perfect  accordance  with,  the  injunctions  given  to  the  Hebrews, 
Thou  shalt  write  them  upon  the  door  posts  of  thine  house,  thou 
shalt  teach  them  to  thy  children. 

It  is  a  curious  indication,  that  the  religion  of  superstition  and 
will- worship  resorts  to  all  other  talismans  and  symbols  save  the 
Word  of  God.  The  Romanists,  so  profuse  of  signs  and  rites  and 
things  pretended  holy,  are  very  sparing  and  cautious  of  this.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Mohammedans  apply  themselves  to  sentences 
from  the  Koran.  The  palace  of  the  Alhambra  in  Spain  is  cov- 
ered all  over  with  leaves  from  the  sayings  of  their  prophet.  The 
religion  of  the  Mohammedans  is  not  afraid  of  its  professed  books 
of  inspiration  ;  it  never  enacted  a  law  forbidding  them  to  be  read 
in  the  vernacular  tongue,  or  by  the  common  people.  The  re- 
ligion  of  the  Romanists  is  afraid  of  the  Word,  and  instead  of 
teaching  it,  conceals  it,  and  uses  all  other  things  but  that  as  sym- 
bols. Here  is  matter  for  reflection. 


48  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xn. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Picturesque  cottages,    A  picturesque  language.     Right  and  unright  inno- 
vation. 

SOME  of  the  Swiss  cottages  are  extremely  picturesque,  espe- 
cially here  in  the  Oberland  Alps,  with  their  galleries  running 
round  them  outside,  their  rows  of  chequered  windows,  and  their 
low-dropping,  sheltering,  hospitable  roofs.  Sometimes  the  shin- 
gles are  curiously  wrought  with  much  pains-taking,  and  fitted 
like  the  scales  of  some  sea-creature.  But  in  general  there  is  not 
the  care  for  clustering  shrubbery  outside,  which  might  add  so 
much  to  their  beauty,  and  which  makes  many  a  poor  cot  in 
England,  when  Spring  has  thrown  its  blossoming  warp  over  them, 
for  Summer  to  fill  up,  so  rich  with  mossy  greenness.  The  rows 
of  yellow  golden  corn,  hanging  under  the  eaves  of  the  Swiss 
cottages,  might  suggest  to  an  imaginative  mind  a  new  order  of 
architecture. 

I  see  not  why  this  quality  of  picturesqueness  is  not  quite  as 
desirable  in  buildings  as  it  is  in  scenery,  and  also  in  language, 
in  opinions,  in  literature,  in  the  whole  of  life.  There  is  much 
more  of  it  in  every  way  in  the  Old  World  than  in  America,  and 
hence  in  part  the  romantic  charm,  which  everything  wears  to  the 
eye  of  a  Transatlantic.  Why  should  there  be  so  much  monotony 
with  us  ?  Why  not  more  originality  and  variety  ?  Is  it  because 
of  the  irresistible  despotism  of  associations,  which  are  so  much 
and  so  usefully  the  type  of  modern  society,  breaking  down  and 
repressing,  or  rather  hindering  the  development  of  individuality  ? 

The  desire  to  produce  uniformity,  when  unaccompanied  with 
the  idea  and  the  love  of  the  free  and  the  beautiful,  and  unchecked 
by  a  regard  to  the  rights  of  others,  produces  despotism  and  mono- 
tony ia  the  whole  domain  of  life,  as  well  as  in  the  Church.  Some 
men  would  push  it  even  into  the  syllabic  constitution  of  our  Ian- 


CHAP,  xii.]  INNOVATIONS.  49 

guage,  which  they  would  reduce  to  a  monotonous  regularity, 
quite  undesirable,  even  if  it  could  be  accomplished.  Why  should 
we  desire  to  do  it,  any  more  than  we  should  wish  to  put  the  stars 
into  strait  jackets  of  squares  or  triangles,  or  all  the  trees  into  the 
form  of  quincunxes  ?  There  are  men,  Mr.  Dana  once  said,  who, 
if  they  could  have  had  the  making  of  the  universe,  instead  of 
the  fair  vault  of  azure  hung  with  its  drapery  of  gorgeous  cloud, 
and  by  night  studded  with  innumerable  wild  stars,  would  have 
covered  the  sky  with  one  vast  field  of  dead,  cold  blue. 

There  are  just  such  men  in  literature  and  spelling,  for  ever 
thrusting  their  dry,  bare,  sapless  formulas  of  utility  before  the 
mind,  telling  you  that  nothing  must  be  done  without  some  reason, 
that  everything  must  have  its  place,  and  its  place  for  everything, 
and  in  fine,  with  a  multitude  of  wise  old  saws  and  modern  in- 
stances, they  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  world,  which  has 
gone  wild  and  crazy  in  freedom  and  beauty,  wild -above  rule  or 
art,  is  now  to  be  constructed  over  again,  according  to  the  pre- 
cepts and  analyses  of  their  utilitarianism.  Wo  be  to  a  superflu- 
ous letter,  if  these  men  catch  it  caracoling  and  playing  its  pranks 
in  a  word,  which,  though  it  may  be  none  the  better  for  its  pre- 
sence, yet,  being  accustomed  to  it,  is  none  the  worse  ;  away  it  goes 
to  the  Lexicographer's  watch-house,  till  it  can  be  tried  for  vagrancy. 
Instead  of  the  good  old  word  height,  these  men  would  have  us 
drop  the  e  and  spell  flight,  but  to  be  consistent,  both  the  g  and  the 
h  should  be  dropped,  and  the  word  written  hyt.  That  would  be 
strict  utilitarianism.  The  word  pretence  they  would  change  into 
pretense,  and  so  with  others  of  that  family.  The  word  theatre 
they  would  print  theater,  and  others  of  the  same  clan  in  like 
manner.  The  expressive  word  haggard  they  would  change  into 
hagard,  because,  forsooth,  two  gs  are  superfluous.  In  this  at- 
tempt at  change  they  are  going  contrary  to  good  usage,  which 
must  ever  be  the  prevailing  law  of  language,  and  instead  of  pro- 
ducing uniformity  in  the  language  itself  (in  which  irregularities 
are  of  little  consequence,  nay,  sometimes  add  to  its  beauty),  they 
are  causing  one  of  the  greatest  evils  of  language,  irregularity, 
uncertainty,  and  lawlessness  in  the  mode  of  using  it. 

This  is  owing  in  a  great  measure  to  Dr.  Webster's  unfortunate 
PART  n.  5 


50  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xn. 

orthographical  eccentricities,  which  have  set  so  many  spellers 
and  journeymen  printers  agog  to  imitate  him.  It  is  vexatious  to 
think  of  the  prospect  of  our  becoming  provincialized,  and  as  ob- 
noxious to  the  charge  of  dialects  as  any  county  in  England,  when 
heretofore  we  have  been,  as  a  people,  so  much  more  pure  and 
classical  in  our  use  of  the  English  language,  than  the  English 
people  themselves.  These  innovations  should  be  resisted,  nor 
should  any  mere  Lexicographer,  nor  University,  nor  knot  of 
critics,  have  it  in  their  power  to  make  them  prevalent.  A  great 
and  powerful  writer,  like  John  Foster  or  Edmund  Burke,  a  great 
Poet,  like  Shakspeare  or  Milton,  is  a  great  king  and  creator  in 
language  ;  his  sway  is  legitimate,  for  he  enlarges  the  capacity  of 
his  native  tongue,  and  increases  its  richness  and  imaginative 
power,  and  when  the  soul  of  genius  innovates,  it  has  some  right 
so  to  do.  And  such  innovations  will  inevitably  pass  into  the  soul 
of  language,  and  become  a  part  of  its  law.  But  the  mere  critic 
and  lexicographer  has  no  right  to  innovate ;  he  is  to  take  the 
language  as  he  finds  it,  and  declare  and  set  forth  its  forms  ac- 
cording to  good  usage ;  he  is  out  of  his  province,  and  becomes 
an  usurper,  when  he  attempts  to  alter  it. 

These  surveyors  of  the  King's  English  are  going  about  to 
prune  the  old  oaks  of  the  language  of  all  supernumerary  knots, 
leaves  and  branches.  If  there  is  any  question  as  to  the  propriety 
of  their  course,  whist,  they  whip  you  out  of  their  pocket  the 
great  American  Lexicographer's  measuring  line,  and  tell  you 
exactly  how  far  the  tre-e  ought  to  grow,  and  that  every  part  not 
sanctioned  by  his  authority  must  be  lopped  off.  It  were  well  if 
these  gentlemen  were  compelled  to  practise  the  same  rules  and 
attempt  the  same  innovations  with  the  bonnets  of  their  wives, 
that  they  are  attempting  with  the  King's  English.  Let  them  cut 
off  every  supernumerary  ribbon,  and  shape  the  head-dress  of  the 
ladies  by  square  and  compass,  and  not  by  the  varieties  of  taste, 
and  in  this  enterprise  they  would  find  somewhat  more  of  dif- 
ficulty in  carrying  out  their  utilitarian  maxims. 

The  sacred  word  Bible  our  coterie  of  critics  must  needs  spell 
with  a  small  b.  This  is  worse  than  mere  innovation.  There  is 
a  dignity  and  sacredness  of  personification  connected  with  the 


CHAP,  xii.]  INNOVATIONS. 


word  Bible,  which  appropriately  manifests  itself  in  making  the 
term  a  proper  name.  It  partakes  of  the  sacredness  of  the  name 
of  God,  and  ought  always  to  be  written  with  a  capital  B,  for  the 
usage  has  obtained,  as  a  matter  of  religious  reverence,  and  a 
good  and  venerable  usage  it  is. 

We  shall  have  a  grand  world  by  and  by,  when  it  is  all  a  dead 
level.  Every  mountain  is  to  come  down,  and  every  valley  to  be 
raised,  and  a  utilitarian  railroad  is  to  run  straight  across  the 
world ;  an  embargo  is  to  be  laid  on  all  winding  ways  ;  the  trees 
are  to  have  just  so  ma^yMeaves,  and  no  more  •  the  oaks  are  not 
to  be  suffered  to  sport  any  more  knots ;  the  rose-bfcshes  are  Jto 
put  forth  no  more  buds  than  the  essence-makers  declare  to  be 
wanted;  our  prayers  ^are  to  have  only  so  many  words,  and  if 
any  minister  appears  in  the  pulpit  without  a  white  neck-cloth,  or 
a  surplice  so  many  inches  long,  he  is  to  be  suspended  and  excom- 
municated. All  our  hymns  are  to  undergo^a  revision,  and  to  be 
cleansed  of  all  hard  and  naughty  words,  and  pruned  of  all  super- 
numerary stanzas,  and  a  fine  is  to  be  laid  upon  every  clergyman 
who  shall  give  out  more  than  four. 

The  corps  of  revisers  would  do  well  for  awhile  to  let  other 
men's  productions  alone,  and  to  leave  the  English  language  in 
the  hands  of  Addison  and  Goldsmith,  Shakspeare,  Cowper,  and 
our  Translation  of  the  Bible.  Some  poet-pedlars  are  especially 
fond  of  tinkering  with  old  hymns,  thinking  they  can  solder  up 
the  rents  in  Watts  and  Cowper.  Walker's  Rhyming  Dictionary 
and  Webster's  great  Lexicon  might  constitute  their  whole  stock 
in  trade.  Methinks  we  can  hear  them  bawling  from  the  wooden 
seat  of  their  cart,  "  Any  old  hymns  to  mend,  old  hymns  to 
mend  ?"  This  tinkered  ware  will  not  last.  We  should  almost 
as  soon  think  of  adopting  wooden  nutmegs,  at  the  instigation  of 
the  pedlars  "  down  east,"  instead  of  the  old-fashioned  genuine 
spices  of  Morgenland.  But  alas,  the  fictitious  and  the  genuine 
have  got  so  mingled  up  by  generation  after  generation  of  menders, 
that  poets  like  Cowper  and  Watts  would  find  it  difficult  them- 
selves, in  some  cases,  to  say  which  was  their  own.version.  The 
same  is  the  case  with  some  of  the  best  old  tunes  in  music,  ground 
down  to  suit  the  barrel  organs  of  new  composers.  O  that  men 
would  leave  some  of  the  old  stones  with  mosses  on  them  ! 


52  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xn. 

What  has  all  this  to  do,  you  are  asking,  with  Kandersteg  and 
the  Swiss  hamlets  ?  We  have  made  a  digression,  it  must  be 
acknowledged,  but  the  way  back  is  not  difficult.  It  is  clearly 
manifest  that  picturesqueness  is  as  desirable  a  quality  in  language 
and  literature  as  it  is  in  trees  and  houses.  And  let  us  remember 
that  the  utmost  simplicity  is  perfectly  consistent  with  this  quality 
of  picturesqueness.  If  we  must  change  our  language,  let  it  not 
be  by  making  it  more  bare,  but  richer  and  more  simple.  Men 
often  mistake  barrenness  for  simplicity,  but  there'is  no  necessary 
relationship  between  the  two.  A  bare  naked  man,  we  take  it, 
has  no  more  simplicity  than  a  decently  dressed  gentleman.  The 
bald,  staring,  red  front  of  a  brick  house  on  a  dusty  street  is  not 
half  so  simple  an  object,  as  a  pretty  cottage  with  verandahs  and 
honeysuckles.  It  is  not  the  things  which  are  omitted,  but  those 
which  are  wisely  retained,  that  constitute  true  simplicity.  The 
simplicity  of  words  is  not  to  be  judged  by  the  equilibrium  of 
syllables,  or  the  balance  of  vowels  and  consonants,  nor  is  lan- 
guage to  be  judged  as  the  shopkeepers  would  measure  tape  by 
the  yard,  or  carpets  by  the  figures.  It  must  grow  as  the  trees 
do,  with  the  same  variety  and  freedom,  under  the  same  law  of 
picturesque  and  not  immutable  vitality. 


CHAP,  xiii.]  BLUMLIS  ALP  AT  SUNSET.  53 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Kandersteg.     Frutigen.     The  Blumlis  Alp.     Lake  and  Village  of  Thun. 

IT  was  early  enough  in  the  afternoon  to  reach  Thun,  by  taking  a 
char,  the  same  evening,  and  I  was  sufficiently  tired  lor  the  day, 
and  quite  well  disposed  for  a  ride  through  the  lovely  valley  of 
Frutigen,  still  far  below  us.  A  few  miles  from  Kandersteg  we 
found  ourselves  on  the  outer  edge  of  the  spreading  farms  of  that 
village,  a  most  sudden  and  romantic  contrast,  to  one  stepping 
down  from  the  icy  top  and  rough  sides  of  the  Gemmi. 

"  Who  loves  to  lie  with  me, 
Under  the  greenwood  tree, 
Come  hither,  come  hither,  come  hither ; 
Here  shall  he  see 
No  Enemy 
But  Winter  and  rough  weather." 

Here  shall  you  see  Summer  and  Winter  conversing  together,  with 
but  a  wall  between  them,  as  a  fair  girl  on  an  errand  of  mercy 
might  stand  in  the  sweet  open  air  outside  a  prison,  and  converse, 
through  the  grated  black  window,  with  a  savage,  shut  up  criminal, 
with  wild  eyes  and  matted  hair.  By  and  by  the  Savage  will  break 
prison,  and  come  down  into  the  grassy  plains,  but  this  is  not  his 
season  of  liberty.  You  can  talk  with  him,  and  hear  his  fierce 
voice,  and  look  at  his  icy  fingers,  without  his  touching  you. 

Turning  from  Kandersteg  and  the  Gemmi,  you  overlook  at 
once  the  long  descending  vale,  all  the  way  to  where  it  ends  at 
Frutigen,  with  the  spires  and  white  houses  of  that  village  shining 
in  the  distant  evening  sun.  Is  not  the  view  quite  enchanting  ? 
Nearly  at  right  angles  with  the  gorge  down  which  you  are  de- 
scending, lies  the  now  concealed  valley  of  Frutigen,  one  of  the 
richest  deep  inclosures  of  the  Alps.  And  now  it  opens  upon  us. 
We  lose  the  Gemmi  and  the  woods  and  roaring  brooks  of  Kan- 


54  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xm. 

dersteg,  and  turn  down  towards  the  more  open  face  of  a  world  so 
beautiful. 

Our  drive  through  the  vale  brought  us  full  upon  the  view  of 
the  snowy  Blumlis  Alp  at  sunset.  What  a  form  of  majesty  and 
glory !  How  he  flings  the  flaming  mantle  of  the  evening  sun 
down  upon  us,  as  if  he  were  himself  about  to  ascend  in  fire  from 
earth  to  heaven ! 

"  So  like  the  Mountain,  may  we  grow  more  bright, 

From  unimpeded  commerce  with  the  Sun, 
.  At  the  approach  of  all  involving  night." 

WORDSWORTH. 

Nothing  earthly  can  be  more  glorious  than  such  a  revelation. 
Meantime,  as  we  rode  into  the  twilight  of  the  Vale,  there  came 
and  went,  between  the  trees  and  the  mountains,  through  which 
we  looked  into  the  western  heavens,  a  sky,  that  seemed  for  a 
season  to  be  growing  brighter,  as  we  were  getting  darker,  a  sky, 
as  the  same  Poet  describes  it, 

"  Bright  as  the  glimpses  of  Eternity, 
To  saints  accorded  in  their  dying  hour." 

So  shone  the  Blumlis  Alp.  But  we  had  hardly  done  admiring 
the  crimson  tints  on  that  grand  and  mighty  range,  when  turning 
from  this  valley  and  passing  the  lovely  entrance  of  the  Simmen- 
thal,  we  came  upon  the  borders  of  the  Lake  of  Thun,  and  beheld 
suddenly  the  full  moon  rising  behind  the  snowy  ranges  of  the 
Bernese  Alps,  and  gilding  them  with  such  mild,  cloudless  efful- 
gence, that  nothing  could  be  more  beautiful.  They  were  distinct 
and  shining,  and  so  soft  and  white,  so  grand  and  varied  in  their 
outlines,  that  the  sudden  vision  beneath  the  sailing  moon  seemed 
like  a  trance  or  dream  of  some  eternal  scenery.  For  the  hori- 
zon, and  the  deep  air  above  it,  glowed  like  a  pale  liquid  flame, 
and  in  this  atmosphere  the  mountains  were  set,  like  the  founda- 
tions of  the  Celestial  City.  Then  we  had  the  Lake,  with  the 
moonlight  reflected  from  it  in  a  long  line  of  brightness,  and 
amidst  the  beauty  of  this  scenery,  our  day's  excursion  was  ended 
by  our  entrance  into  Thun. 


CHAP,  xni  ]  LAKE  OF  THUN.  55 

Now  it  would  scarcely  be  possible  in  all  Switzerland  to  fill  a 
day  with  a  succession  of  scenes  of  more  extraordinary  grandeur 
and  sublimity,  softness  and  loveliness.  Gcd's  goodness  has  pro- 
tected us  from  danger,  and  shielded  us  from  harm  in  the  midst 
of  danger,  unworthy  that  we  are  of  his  love.  How  have  we 
wished  for  the  dear  ones  at  home  to  be  with  us,  enjoying  these 
glories !  And  is  not  the  goodness  of  God  peculiarly  displayed, 
in  giving  us  materials  and  forms  of  such  exciting  sublimity  and 
beauty  to  gaze  upon  in  the  very  walls  of  our  earthly  habitation  ? 
What  a  grand  discipline  for  the  mind,  in  these  mighty  forms  of 
nature,  and  for  the  heart  too,  if  rightly  improved,  with  its  affec- 
tions. These  mountains  are  a  great  page  in  our  natural  the- 
ology :  they  speak  to  us  of  the  power  and  glory  of  our  Maker. 
And  for  the  food  and  enkindling  of  the  imagination  they  are  in 
the  world-creation  what  such  a  work  as  the  Paradise  Lost  is  in 
the  domain  of  poetry  ;  they  are  what  a  book  of  great  and  sug- 
gestive thoughts  is  to  a  sensitive  mind ;  they  waken  it  up  and 
make  it  thrill  with  great  impulses  ;  and  as  a  strain  of  grand  un- 
earthly music,  a  thunder-burst  of  sound,  or  as  the  ringing  of  the 
bells  of  the  New  Jerusalem  permitted  to  become  audible,  they 
put  the  soul  itself  in  motion  like  an  inward  organ,  and  set  it  to 
singing  in  the  choral  universal  harmony. 

The  next  day  after  this  memorable  excursion  opened  with  a 
morning  cloudy  and  misty,  but  it  was  clear  again  at  ten.  We 
are  at  the  Pension  Baumgarten,  in  the  picturesque  town  of  Thun, 
under  the  shadow  of  a  green  mountain,  with  the  Lake  to  the 
right,  the  town  before  us,  and  the  clear  rapid  Aar  shooting  like 
an  arrow  from  the  Lake,  under  old  bridges,  and  past  houses  and 
battlements,  as  the  crystal  Rhone  from  the  Lake  at  Geneva. 
There  are  about  5000  inhabitants,  with  a  noble  old  Feudal  Castle 
of  the  twelfth  century  towering  on  a  steep,  house-clad  hill  in  the 
centre  of  the  village,  and  an  antique  venerable  church  nearly  as 
lofty.  From  the  church-yard  tower  and  terrace,  where  I  am 
jotting  a  few  dim  sketches  in  words,  you  have  a  magnificent 
view  of  the  Lake  and  the  Alps.  Parties  of  visitors,  most  of  them 
English,  are  constantly  coming  and  going  at  this  spot.  The 
Lake  stretches  before  you  about  ten  miles  long,  between  lovely 
green  gardens  and  mountain-ranges  fringing  it,  with  the  flashing 


56  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xm. 

snowy  summits  and  glaciers  of  the  Jungfrau,  Finster-Aarhorn, 
Eigher,  and  Monch  filling  the  view  at  its  extremity.  On  the 
plains  of  Thun  the  troops  from  the  various  Swiss  Cantons  are  at 
this  moment  encamped  for  review,  and  passing  through  a  variety 
of  evolutions. 

How  like  the  first  garden  are  the  delicious  vales  and  lakes 
hidden  among  the  mountains  !  The  Poet  Cowley  observes,  as 
indicating  to  us  a  lesson  of  happiness,  that  the  first  gift  of  God 
to  man  was  a  garden,  even  before  a  wife ;  gardens  first,  the  gift 
of  God's  love,  cities  afterwards,  the  work  of  man's  ambition. 

"  For  well  he  knew  what  place  would  best  agree 
With  innocence  and  with  felicity : 

And  we  elsewhere  still  seek  for  them  in  vain, 

If  any  part  of  either  yet  remain  : 
If  any  part  of  either  we  expect, 
This  may  our  judgment  in  the  search  direct, 

GOD  the  first  Garden  made,  and  the  first  city,  CAIN." 


CHAP,  xiv.]  THUN  TO  INTERLACHEN.  57 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

m 
Thun  to  Interlachen.     Interlachen  to  Lauterbrunnen.     Bible  in  Schools. 

SEEING  that  I  am  to  be  a  solitary  pedestrian,  from  Thun  through 
the  Oberland  Alps  as  far  as  Lucerne,  my  friend  being  bound 
homewards  through  Berne  for  England,  I  must  make  the  most  of 
this  continued  lovely  weather  ;  and  since  there  is  nothing  in 
Thun  to  detain  me,  unless  I  were  fond  of  looking  at  the  crowds 
of  gay  and  care-defying  visitors,  coming  and  going,  in  whom, 
being  strangers,  I  feel  no  personal  interest,  and  they  none  in  me, 
I  must  even  start  to-day  in  the  little  iron  steamer  of  the  lake  for 
Neuhaus.  I  could  not  persuade  my  friend  to  go  farther,  for  he 
was  continually  thinking  of  his  wife  and  children,  looking  to- 
wards home  in  just  the  state  to  have  become  a  pillar  of  salt.  In- 
wardly mourning,  he  dragged  at  each  remove  a  lengthening 
chain.  Besides,  a  careless  herdsman  on  the  mountains  had 
struck  him  on  the  leg  with  a  stone  intended  for  one  of  his  unruly 
cattle,  and  he  remembered,  years  ago,  how  one  of  his  classmates, 
with  whom  he  was  then  travelling  in  Switzerland,  was  laid  on  a 
sick  bed  for  weeks,  in  consequence  of  a  similar  hurt  not  attended 
to.  So  between  the  sweet  domestic  fire-side,  and  the  lame  leg, 
he  was  compelled  to  turn  his  face  homewards.  I  parted  from 
him  with  great  regret,  and  resumed  my  pilgrimage  alone. 

The  sail  from  Thun  to  Neuhaus,  at  the  other  end  of  the  Lake, 
needs  the  sun  upon  the  mountains,  if  you  would  have  the  full 
glory  of  the  landscape.  For  us  it  shone  upon  the  Lake  and  on 
its  borders,  but  on  the  distant  Alps  the  clouds  rested  in  such 
fleecy  volumes,  like  a  troop  of  maidens  hiding  the  bride,  that  it 
was  only  at  intervals  the  mountains  were  revealed  to  us.  Land- 
ing at  Neuhaus,  you  may  go  in  a  diligence,  omnibus,  hackney 
coach,  mail  carriage,  or  any  way  you  please  that  is  possible,  a 
couple  of  miles  to  Unterseehen,  a  brown  old  primitive  village ; 


58  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xiv. 

and  a  little  farther  to  Interlachen,  which  is  a  large  English  board- 
ing house,  with  streets  running  through  it,  shaded  with  great 
walnut  trees,  and  paraded  by  troops  of  dawdling  loungers  and 
lodgers,  with  here  and  there  a  sprinkling  of  Swiss  natives.  It 
is  beautifully  situated  in  the  midst  of  a  large  plain,  about  mid- 
way between  the  Lakes  of  Thun  and  Brientz,  both  these  Lakes 
being  visible  from  a  hill  amidst  the  meadow  behind  Interlachen, 
with  all  the  lovely  intervening  scenery  and  villages.  Going  from 
Neuhaus  to  Interlachen,  you  are  reminded  of  the  passage  from 
Lake  George  to  Lake  Champlain.  The  verdure  and  foliage  of 
the  valley,  to  where  it  passes  from  meadow  to  mountain,  is  rich 
beyond  description.  It  becomes  really  magnificent  as  it  robes 
the  stupendous  mountain  masses  in  such  dark  rich  hues. 

From  Interlachen  the  way  to  Lauterbrunnnen  lies  through  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  valleys  in  Switzerland.  Entering  it  from 
the  plain,  we  had  a  noble  view  of  the  Jungfrau  rising  with  its 
eternal  snows  behind  ridges  of  the  most  beautiful  verdure,  now 
veiled  and  now  revealed  from  its  misty  shroud.  The  moun- 
tain torrent  Lutschinen  thunders  down  a  savage  gorge  between 
forest-clad  slopes  and  precipices,  along  which  you  pass  from  the 
villages  of  Wylderschwyl  and  Mulhinen  for  about  two  miles, 
when  the  valley  opens  into  two  deep  ravines,  one  on  the  left,  run- 
ning to  Grindlewald,  the  other  on  the  right  to  Lauterbrunnen, 
each  traversed  by  a  roaring  stream  that  falls  into  the  Lutschinen. 
You  may  go  either  to  Lauterbrunnen  or  Grindlewald  and  back 
again  to  Interlachen  in  a  few  hours,  having  witnessed  some  of 
the  sublimest  scenery  in  Switzerland ;  but  the  grand  route  is 
through  Lauterbrunnen  across  the  Wengern  Alps,  down  into  the 
valley  of  Grindlewald,  and  thence  across  the  Grand  Scheideck 
down  into  Meyringen,  from  whence  you  may  go  to  the  Lake 
Brientz  on  one  side,  or  across  the  pass  of  the  Grimsel  on  the 
other. 

My  German  guide  from  Interlachen  was  very  intelligent,  and 
being  an  inhabitant  of  the  village  of  Muhlinen,  he  communicated 
to  us  many  interesting  particulars.  He  told  us  of  the  schools  of 
his  native  village,  and  among  other  things  how  each  parent  pays 
five  batz,  or  fifteen  cents,  in  the  winter,  and  three  in  the  summer, 
for  each  child's  schooling,  and  how  in  the  winter  the  children  go 


CHAP,  xiv.]  RELIGIOUS  SCHOOL  TEACHING.  59 

to  school  in  the  morning  from  eight  to  twelve,  then  home  to  din- 
ner,  then  in  the  afternoon  from  one  to  three  ;  but  in  the  summer 
only  from  eight  to  eleven  in  the  morning  at  school,  and  then  the 
rest  of  the  day  to  work.  He  told  us  also  how  the  school  had 
two  masters  and  one  mistress,  besides  the  clergyman  of  the  parish, 
who  takes  the  children  for  religious  instruction  two  hours  a-day. 

Upon  my  wcfrd  (the  traveller  may  say  to  himself)  here  is  a 
good,  wise,  time- honored  provision.  These  primitive  people  are 
old-fashioned  and  Biblical  enough,  to  think  that  religious  instruc- 
tion ought  to  be  as  much  an  element  of  education,  and  as  con- 
stant and  unintermitted,  as  secular.  They  are  right,  they  are 
laying  foundations  for  stability,  prosperity,  and  happiness  in  their 
little  community.  The  world  is  wrong  side  up  in  this  matter  of 
education,  when  it  administers  its  own  medicines  only,  its  own 
beggarly  elements,  its  own  food,  and  nothing  higher,  its  own 
smatterings  of  knowledges,  without  the  celestial  life  of  know- 
ledge. Power  it  gives,  without  guidance,  without  principles.  It 
is  just  as  if  the  art  of  ship-building  should  be  conducted  without 
helms,  and  all  ships  should  be  set  afloat  to  be  guided  by  the  winds 
only.  For  such  are  the  immortal  ships  on  the  sea  of  human  life 
without  the  Bible ;  its  knowledge,  its  principles,  ought  from  the 
first  to  be  as  much  a  part  of  the  educated  intelligent  constitution, 
as  the  keel  or  rudder  is  part  and  parcel  of  a  well  built  ship. 

Religious  instruction,  therefore,  and  the  breath  of  the  sacred 
Scriptures,  ought  to  be  breathed  into  the  child's  daily  life  of 
knowledge,  not  put  off  to  the  Sabbath,  when  grown  children  only 
are  addressed  from  the  pulpit,  or  left  to  parents  at  home,  who 
perhaps  themselves,  in  too  many  cases,  never  open  the  Bible.  If 
in  their  daily  schools  children  were  educated  for  Eternity  as 
well  as  Time,  there  would  be  more  good  citizens,  a  deeper  piety 
in  life,  a  more  sacred  order  and  heaven-like  beauty  in  the  Re- 
public, a  better  understanding  of  law,  a  more  patient  obedience 
to  it,  nay,  a  prediction  of  it,  and  a  conformable  organization  to  it, 
and  an  assimilation  with  its  spirit,  beforehand. 

It  is  by  celestial  observations  alone,  said  Coleridge  (and  it  was 
a  great  and  profound  remark),  that  terrestrial  charts  can  be  con- 
structed. If  our  education  would  be  one  that  States  can  live  by 
and  flourish,  it  must  be  ordered  in  the  Scriptures.  What  suicidal, 


60  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xiv. 

heterogeneous,  Roman  madness,  in  the  attempt  to  exclude  the 
Bible  from  our  public  schools !  May  its  authors  bite  themselves  ! 

Our  guide  told  us  moreover  a  very  curious  regulation  of  the 
internal  police  of  the  school  at  Muhlinen,  intended  to  keep  the 
children  from  playing  truant,  which  they  accomplish  effectually 
by  working  not  upon  the  child's  fear  of  the  rod,  or  love  of  his 
studies,  but  upon  the  parent's  love  of  his  money.  •  That  is  to  say, 
if  the  children  are  absent,  and  as  often  as  they  are  absent,  a 
cross  is  put  against  the  parent's  name,  and  he  is  made  account- 
able, and  is  fined,  if  he  does  not  give  satisfactory  reason  for  the 
child's  absence.  Of  course  all  the  whippings  for  playing  truant 
are  administered  by  the  parent,  and  therefore  it  being  very  sure, 
if  there  is  a  fine  for  the  parent  to  pay,  that  the  amount  of  it  will 
be  fully  endorsed  upon  the  child  with  a  birch  rod,  the  pupils 
take  good  care  to  keep  punctual  at  school.  No  delinquent  can 
escape,  for  no  false  excuse  can  be  manufactured.  It  is  a  system 
which  might  perhaps  be  very  useful  in  other  arts  besides  that  of 
school-keeping. 

Coming  up  the  valley  to  Lauterbrunnen,  you  cannot  cease  ad- 
miring the  splendid  verdure  that  clothes  the  mountains  on  each 
side,  as  well  as  the  romantic  depth  and  wildness  of  the  gorge, 
above  which  your  road  passes.  Just  before  you  enter  the  village 
or  hamlet,  the  cascade  of  the  Staubach,  at  some  distance  beyond 
it,  comes  suddenly  into  view,  poured  from  the  very  summit  of  the 
mountain,  as  if  out  of  heaven,  and  streaming,  or  rather  waving, 
in  a  long  line  of  foam,  like  Una's  hair  as  described  by  Spenser, 
or  like  the  comet  Ophiuncus  in  Milton  ;  sweeping  down  the  per- 
pendicular face  of  the  mountain  with  indescribable  grace  and 
beauty. 

The  rising  of  the  moon  upon  this  scene  was  beyond  expression 
lovely.  The  clouds  had  gone,  and  the  snowy  summit  of  the 
Jungfrau  seemed  hanging  over  into  the  valley,  and  the  moon  rose 
with  a  single  star  by  her  side,  lending  to  the  glaciers  a  rich  but 
transitory  brilliancy,  and  shining  with  her  solemn  light,  so  still, 
so  solemn,  down  into  the  depths  of  the  broad  ravine,  upon  mea- 
dow, rock,  and  torrent.  From  the  window  of  my  room  in  our 
hotel  I  could  see  in  one  view  this  moon,  the  glittering  Jungfrau, 
and  the  foaming  Staubach  on  the  other  side.  The  night  was 


CHAP,  xiv.]  MOUNTAIN  SOLITUDES.  61 

very  beautiful,  but  soon  the  mists  rose,  filling  the  valley,  and 
taking  away  from  a  tired  traveller  all  apology  for  not  going 
immediately  to  bed.  We  had  had  a  charming  day,  and 
were  once  more  out  of  the  world  of  artificial  and  dawdling 
idlers,  and  in  the  deep  heart  of  nature's  most  solitary  and  sub- 
lime recesses.  How  great,  how  pure,  how  exquisite,  is  the  en- 
joyment of  the  traveller  in  these  mountain  solitudes !  He 
scarcely  feels  fatigue,  but  only  excitement ;  it  is  a  species  of 
mental  intoxication,  a  joyous,  elevated,  elastic  state,  which  is  as 
natural  an  atmosphere  for  the  mind,  in  these  circumstances,  as 
the  pure  bracing  mountain  air  is  for  the  body. 


PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xv. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Staubach  Cascade  and  Vale  of  Lauterbrunnen. 

THE  first  sound  I  heard  on  waking  in  the  morning,  indeed  the 
sound  that  waked  me,  was  the  echoing  Alpine  Horn,  breaking 
the  stillness  of  the  Valley  with  its  long  drawn  far  off  melody. 
I  threw  open  my  window  towards  the  East ;  the  sun  was  already 
on  the  snowy  summit  of  the  Jungfrau,  the  air  sparkling  and 
frosty,  giving  a  sharp,  decisive  promise  of  a  clear  day ;  and  the 
Staubach,  which  was  such  a  dim  and  misty  line  of  waving  silver 
in  the  moonlight  of  the  evening,  was  clearly  revealed,  almost 
like  a  bird  of  paradise,  throwing  itself  into  the  air  from  the  brow 
of  the  mountain. 

It  is  the  most  exquisitely  beautiful  of  waterfalls,  though  there 
are  miniatures  of  it  in  the  Valley  of  the  Arve  almost  as  beautiful. 
You  have  no  conception  of  the  volume  of  water,  nor  of  the 
grandeur  of  the  fall,  until  you  come  near  it,  almost  beneath  it ; 
but  its  extreme  beauty  is  better  seen  and  felt  at  a  little  distance ; 
indeed  we  thought  it  looked  more  beautiful  than  ever  when  we 
saw  it,  about  ten  o'clock,  from  the  mountain  ridge  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  Valley.  It  is  between  eight  and  nine  hundred  feet  in 
height,  over  the  perpendicular  precipice,  so  that  the  eye  traces  its 
course  so  long,  and  its  movement  is  so  checked  by  the  resistance 
of  the  air  and  the  roughnesses  of  the  mountain,  that  it  seems 
rather  to  float  than  to  fall,  and  before  it  reaches  the  bottom, 
dances  down  in  ten  thousand  little  jets  of  white  foam,  which  all 
alight  together,  as  softly  as  a  white- winged  albatross  on  the  bosom 
of  the  ocean.  It  is  as  if  a  million  of  rockets  were  shot  off  in 
one  shaft  into  the  air,  and  then  descended  together,  some  of  them 
breaking  at  every  point  in  the  descent,  and  all  streaming  down  in 
a  combination  of  meteors.  So  the  streams  in  this  fall,  where  it 
springs  into  the  air,  separate  and  hold  their  own  as  long  as  possi- 


CHAP,  xv.]  STAUBACH  CASCADE.  63 

ble,  and  then  burst  into  rockets  of  foam,  dropping  down  at  first 
heavily,  as  if  determined  to  reach  the  ground  unbroken,  and 
then  dissolving  into  showers  of  mist,  so  gracefully,  so  beauti- 
fully, like  snow-dust  on  the  bosom  of  the  air,  that  it  seems  like  a 
spiritual  creation,  rather  than  a  thing  inert,  material. 

"  Time  cannot  thin  thy  flowing  hair, 

Nor  take  one  ray  of  light  from  thee, 
For  in  our  Fancy  thou  dost  share 
The  gift  of  Immortality." 

Its  literal  name  is  Dust-fall,  and  to  use  a  very  homely  illustra- 
tion, but  one  which  may  give  a  man,  who  has  never  seen  any- 
thing like  it,  some  quaint  idea  of  its  appearance  in  part,  it  is  as  if 
Dame  Nature  had  poured  over  the  precipice  from  her  horn  of 
plenty  a  great  torrent  of  dry  white  meal !  One  should  be  more 
mealy-mouthed  in  his  figures,  but  if  you  are  not  satisfied  with 
this  extraordinary  comparison,  take  the  more  common  one  of  a 
long  lace  veil  waving  down  the  mountain ;  or  better  still,  the  un- 
common one  of  the  Tail  of  the  Pale  Horse  streaming  in  the  wind, 
as  painted  so  beautifully  in  Lord  Byron's  Manfred. 

"  It  is  not  noon, — the  sun-bow's  rays  still  arch 

The  torrent  with  the  many  hues  of  heaven, 
, .       And  roll  the  sheeted  silver's  waving  column 
O'er  the  crag's  headlong  perpendicular, 
And  fling  its  lines  of  foaming  light  along, 
And  to  and  fro,  like  the  pale  courser's  tail, 
The  giant  steed  to  be  bestrode  by  Death, 
As  told  in  the  Apocalypse." 

It  makes  you  think  of  many  things,  this  beautiful  fall,  spring- 
ing so  fearlessly  into  the  gulf.  It  is  like  the  faith  of  a  Christian, 
it  is  like  a  poet's  fancies,  it  is  like  a  philosopher's  conjectures, 
plunging  at  first  into  uncertainty,  but  afterwards  flowing  on  in  a 
stream  of  knowledge  through  the  world.  For  so  does  this  fall, 
when  it  reaches  the  earth  in  a  mere  shower  of  mist,  gather  itself 
up  again  in  a  refreshing,  gurgling  stream,  for  the  meadows  and 
the  plains  to  drink  of.  It  may  make  you  think  of  Wordsworth's 
Helvetian  Maid,  the  blithe  Paragon  of  Alpine  grace : — 


64  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xv. 

"  Her  beauty  dazzles  the  thick  wood ; 
Her  courage  animates  the  flood ; 
Her  step  the  elastic  greensward  meets, 
Returning  unreluctant  sweets, 
The  mountains,  as  ye  heard,  rejoice 
Aloud,  saluted  by  her  voice." 

Or  of  the  "  sweet  Highland  Girl,"  with  her  "  very  shower  of 
beauty  ;"  or  of  a  Peri  from  Paradise  weeping ;  or  of  a  saint 
into  Paradise  entering,  "  having  shot  the  gulf  of  death  ;"  or  of 
the  feet  upon  the  mountains,  of  them  that  bring  the  news  of  glad- 
ness: 

"  Or  of  some  bird  or  star, 
Fluttering  in  woods  or  lifted  far." 

When  the  Poet  Wordsworth  approached  this  celebrated  cas- 
cade, he  seems  to  have  been  assailed  with  a  young  troop  of  tat- 
tered mendicants,  singing  in  a  sort  of  Alpine  whoop  of  welcome, 
in  notes  shrill  and  wild  like  those  intertwined  by  some  caverned 
witch  chaunting  a  love-spell.  His  mind  was  so  taken  up,  and 
his  thoughts  enthralled  by  this  musical  tribe  haunting  the  place 
with  regret  and  useless  pity,  that  his  Muse  left  him  with  but  just 
one  line  for 

"  This  bold,  this  pure,  this  sky-born  WATERFALL  !" 

The  traveller  should  see  it  with  its  rainbows,  and  may,  if  he 
choose,  read  Henry  Vaughan's  lines  before  it,  which  may  set  forth 
an  image  of  the  arches  both  of  light  and  water. 

"  When  thou  dost  shine,  darkness  looks  white  and  fair ; 
Forms  turn  to  music,  clouds  to  smiles  and  air ; 
Rain  gently  spends  his  honey-drops,  and  pours 
Balm  on  the  cleft  earth,  milk  on  grass  and  flowers. 

Bright  pledge  of  peace  and  sunshine  !  the  sure  tie 
Of  thy  Lord's  hand,  the  object  of  his  eye ! 
When  I  behold  thee,  though  my  light  be  dim, 
Distant  and  low,  I  can  in  thine  see  Him, 
Who  looks  upon  thee  from  his  glorious  throne, 
And  minds  the  covenant  betwixt  All  and  One." 


CHAP,  xv.]  TASSELLED  FOUNTAINS.  65 

There  are  some  thirty  cascades  like  this  pouring  over  the  cliffs 
in  this  remarkable  Valley,  hanging  like  long  tassels  or  skeins  of 
silver  thread  adown  the  perpendicular  face  of  the  crags,  and 
seeming  to  dangle  from  the  clouds,  when  the  mist  is  suspended 
over  the  valley.  Some  of  them  spring  directly  from  the  icy 
glaciers,  but  others  come  from  streams,  which  in  the  course  of 
the  summer  are  quite  dried  up.  The  name  of  the  Valley,  Lau- 
terbrunnen,  is  literally  nothing  but  fountains,  derived  from  the 
multitude  of  little  streams,  which,  after  careering  for  some  time 
out  of  sight  on  the  higher  mountain  summits,  spring  over  the 
vast  abrupt  wall  of  this  deep  ravine,  and  reach  the  bottom  in  so 
many  rainbow  showers  of  spray.  Between  these  prodigious 
rock-barriers,  the  vale  is  sunk  so  deep,  that  the  sun  in  the  winter 
does  not  get  down  into  it  before  twelve  o'clock,  and  then  speedily 
disappears.  In  the  summer  he  stays  some  hours  earlier  and 
longer.  The  inhabitants  of  the  village  are  about  1350,  in  houses 
sprinkled  up  and  down  along  the  borders  of  the  torrent,  that 
swiftly  courses  through  the  bottom  of  the  Valley,  about  2500  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  sea. 

PART  n.  6 


66  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xvi. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Wengern  Alp  and  morning  landscape  and  music. 

AND  now  we  leave  the  village,  and  the  lovely  waterfall,  and  rise 
from  the  Valley,  to  cross  the  Wengern  Alp.  We  are  full  of 
expectation,  but  the  scene  on  setting  out  is  so  indescribably  beau- 
tiful, that  even  if  dark  clouds  should  settle  on  all  the  rest  of  the 
day,  and  shut  out  the  glorious  Jungfrau  from  our  view,  it  would 
have  been  well  worth  coming  thus  far  to  see  only  the  beginning 
of  the  glory.  As  we  wind  our  way  up  the  steep  side  of  the 
mountain,  the  mists  are  slowly  and  gracefully  rising  from  the 
depths  of  the  Valley,  along  the  face  of  the  outjutting  crags.  It 
seems  as  if  the  genius  of  nature  were  drawing  a  white  soft  veil 
around  her  bosom. 

But  now,  as  we  rise  still  farther,  the  sun,  pouring  his  fiery 
rays  against  the  opposite  mountain,  makes  it  seem  like  a  smoking 
fire  begirt  with  clouds.  You  think  of  Mount  Sinai  all  in  a  blaze 
with  the  glory  of  the  steps  of  Deity.  The  very  rocks  are  burn- 
ing, and  the  green  forests  also.  Then  there  are  the  white  glit- 
tering masses  of  the  Breithorn  and  the  Mittachshorn  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  a  cascade  shooting  directly  out  from  the  glacier.  Up- 
wards the  mists  are  still  curling  and  hanging  to  the  mountains, 
while  below  there  are  the  clumps  of  trees  in  the  sunlight,  the 
deep  exquisite  green  of  spots  of  unveiled  meadow,  the  winding 
stream,  now  hid  and  now  revealed,  the  grey  mist  sleeping  on  the 
tender  grass,  the  chalets  shining,  the  brooks  murmuring,  the 
birds  singing,  the  sky  above  and  the  earth  beneath,  in  this  "  in- 
cense breathing  morn  "  uniting  in  a  universal  harmony  of  beauty, 
and  melody  of  praise. 

"  In  such  a  season  of  calm  weather, 

Though  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea, 


CHAP,  xvi.]  LESSONS  OF  NATURE.  67 

Which  brought  us  hither ; 

Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither, — 
And  see  the  Children  sport  upon  the  shore, 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore  !" 

And  in  such  a  season,  on  such  a  height  as  this,  in  such  a  morn- 
ing, away  from  Home,  as  well  as  in  the  woodbine  walk  at  Eve, 
that  "dear  tranquil  time,  when  the  sweet  sense  of  Home  is 
sweetest,"  may  not  the  sensitive  mind  experience  the  feeling, 
spoken  of  by  John  Foster  as  the  sentiment  of  intent  and  devout 
observers  of  the  material  world,  "  that  there  is  through  all  nature 
some  mysterious  element  like  soul,  which  comes,  with  a  deep 
significance,  to  mingle  itself  with  their  own  conscious  being  ?" 
May  not  such  observers  find  in  nature  "  a  scene  marked  all  over 
with  mystical  figures,  the  prints  and  traces,  as  it  were,  of  the 
frequentation  and  agency  of  superior  spirits  ?  They  find  it 
sometimes  concentrating  their  faculties  to  curious  and  minute 
inspection,  sometimes  dilating  them  to  the  expansion  of  vast  and 
magnificent  forms ;  sometimes  beguiling  them  out  of  all  precise 
recognition  of  material  realities,  whether  small  or  great,  into 
visionary  musings,  and  habitually  and  in  all  ways  conveying 
into  the  mind  trains  and  masses  of  ideas  of  an  order  not  to  be 
acquired  in  the  schools,  and  exerting  a  modifying  and  assimi- 
lating influence  on  the  whole  mental  economy."  A  clear  intel- 
lectual illustration  of  all  this,  Foster  well  remarks,  would  be  the 
true  Philosophy  of  Nature. 

A  philosophy  like  this  is  yet  but  little  known  and  less  acknow- 
ledged. It  cannot  but  be  truth,  and  truth  which  finds  utterance 
in  the  highest  strains  of  poetic  inspiration,  in  a  quiet,  meditative 
mind,  like  Cowper's,  quiet,  but  not  visionary,  religious,  not 
vaguely  and  mystically  sentimental,  that 

"  One  Spirit,  His 
Who  wore  the  platted  crown  with  bleeding  brows 

Rules  universal  nature. 

The  soul  that  sees  Him,  or  receives,  sublimed, 
New  faculties,  or  learns  at  least  to  employ 
More  worthily  the  powers  she  owned  before ; 
Discerns  in  all  things  what,  with  stupid  gaze 
Of  ignorance,  till  then  she  overlooked. 
A  ray  of  heavenly  light  gilding  all  forms 


68  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP,  xvi 

Terrestrial  in  the  vast  and  the  minute  ; 

The  unambiguous  footsteps  of  the  God, 

Who  gives  its  lustre  to  an  insect's  wing, 

And  wheels  his  throne  upon  the  rolling  worlds  !" 

And  how  can  an  immortal  being  in  God's  world  avoid  acknow- 
ledging and  feeling  this  ?  Can  the  soul  of  man  be  the  only  thing 
that  does  not  praise  God  in  such  a  scene  ?  Alas,  it  may,  if  di- 
|vine  grace  be  not  there.  The  landscape  has  his  praise,  but  not  its 
Author.  Nay,  you  may  sometimes  hear  the  most  tremendous 
oaths  of  admiration,  where  God's  sacred  name  drops  from  the 
lips  in  blistering  impiety,  while  meek  unconscious  nature,  all 
undisturbed  and  quiet,  singeth  her  matin  hymn  of  gratitude  and 
love.  But  again,  you  may  see  the  eye  of  the  gazer  suffused 
with  tears  of  ecstasy,  and  if  you  could  look  into  the  heart,  you 
would  see  the  whole  being  ascending  with  the  choral  harmony 
of  nature,  in  a  worship  still  more  sacred  and  holy  than  her  own. 
God  be  praised  for  the  gift  of  his  Spirit !  What  insensible,  stu- 
pid, impious  stones  we  should  be,  without  divine  grace.  But  let 
us  go  on ;  we  are  not  the  only  mixture  of  good  and  evil  that  hath 
flitted  across  this  mountain. 

We  pass  now  the  Wengern  village,  a  few  very  neat  chalets 
hanging  to  the  mountain  amidst  plenty  of  verdure.  Then  we 
sweep  round  the  circular  base  of  a  craggy  perpendicular  moun- 
tain ridge,  which  encloses  us  on  one  side,  while  the  deep  Valley 
of  Lauterbrunnen  is  hid  out  of  sight  on  the  other.  Here  we 
stop  to  listen  to  the  Alpine  Horn,  with  its  clear  and  beautiful 
echoes.  It  is  nothing  but  a  straight  wooden  trumpet,  about  six 
feet  long,  requiring  no  small  quantity  of  breath  to  give  it  utter- 
ance. The  Old  Man  of  the  Mountains,  that  old  Musician,  coeval 
with  the  first  noise  in  creation,  takes  up  the  melody  with  his 
mighty  reverberating  concave  wall  of  granite,  and  sends  it  back 
with  a  prolonged,  undulating,  ringing,  clear,  distinct  tone,  the 
effect  of  which  is  indescribably  charming.  Our  lad  of  the  horn 
has  also  a  little  cannon,  which  he  fires  off  at  the  instance  of  the 
traveller,  and  the  mountain  sends  it  back  with  a  thousand  thun- 
ders, that  roll  in  grand  bursts  of  sound  from  the  distant  crags, 
and  again,  from  still  more  distant  ridges,  reverberate  magnifi- 
cently. 


CHAP,  xvi.]  JUNGFRAU  ALP.  69 

"  The  Cataracts  blow  their  trumpets  from  the  steep, — 
I  hear  the  Echoes  through  the  mountains  throng  !" 

And  now  we  pass  on,  and  enter  a  silent  sea  of  pines,  how 
beautiful !  silent,  still,  solemn,  religious ;  dark  against  the  enor- 
mous snowy  masses  and  peaks  before  us.  How  near  their  glit- 
tering glaciers  seem  upon  us !  How  clear  the  atmosphere ! 
How  our  voices  ring  out  upon  it,  and  the  very  hum  of  the  insects 
in  the  air  is  distinctly  sonorous.  We  have  now  ascended  to  such 
a  height,  that  we  can  look  across  the  vales  and  mountains,  down 
into  Unterseen  and  Interlachen.  And  now  before  us  rises  the 
Jungfrau  Alp,  how  sublimely  !  But  at  this  moment  of  the  view 
the  Silberhorn  is  far  more  lovely  with  its  fields  of  dazzling 
snow,  than  the  Jungfrau,  which  here  presents  a  savage  perpen- 
dicular steep,  a  wall  of  rock,  scarred  and  seamed  indeed,  but  so 
steep,  that  the  snow  and  ice  cannot  cling  to  its  jagged  points. 
Higher  up  commence  the  tremendous  glaciers,  presenting  a  chaos 
of  enormous  ravines  of  snow  and  ice,  just  ready  to  topple  down 
the  ridge  of  the  mountain. 


70  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xvn. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

The  Jungfrau  Alp  and  its  Avalanches. 

WHEN  we  come  to  the  inn  upon  the  Wengern  Alp,  we  are  near 
5500  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  We  are  directly  in  face 
of  the  JUNGFRAU  upon  whose  masses  of  perpetual  snow  we  have 
been  gazing  with  so  much  interest.  They  seem  close  to  us,  so 
great  is  the  deception  in  clear  air,  but  a  deep,  vast  ravine  (I  know 
not  but  a  league  across  from  where  we  are)  separates  the  Wen- 
gern Alp  from  the  Jungfrau,  which  rises  in  an  abrupt  sheer  pre- 
cipice, of  many  thousand  feet,  somewhat  broken  into  terraces, 
down  which  the  Avalanches,  from  the  higher  beds  of  untrodden 
everlasting  snow,  plunge  thundering  into  the  uninhabitable  abyss. 
Perhaps  there  is  not  another  mountain  so  high  in  all  Switzerland, 
which  you  can  look  at  so  near  and  so  full  in  the  face.  Out  of 
this  ravine  the  Jungfrau  rises  eleven  thousand  feet,  down  which 
vast  height  the  Avalanches  sometimes  sweep  with  their  incal- 
culable masses  of  ice  from  the  very  topmost  summit. 

The  idea  of  a  mass  of  ice  so  gigantic  that  it  might  overwhelm 
whole  hamlets,  or  sweep  away  a  forest  in  its  course,  being  shot 
down,  with  only  one  or  two  interruptions,  a  distance  of  eleven 
thousand  feet,  is  astounding.  But  it  is  those  very  interruptions 
that  go  to  produce  the  overpowering  sublimity  of  the  scene.  Were 
there  no  concussion  intervening  between  the  loosening  of  the 
mountain  ridge  of  ice  and  snow,  and  its  fall  into  the  valley,  if 
it  shot  sheer  off  into  the  air,  and  came  down  in  one  solid  mass 
unbroken,  it  would  be  as  if  a  mountain  had  fallen  at  noon-day 
out  of  heaven.  And  this  would  certainly  be  sublime  in  the 
highest  degree,  but  it  would  not  have  the  awful  slowness  and  deep 
prolonged  roar  of  the  Jungfrau  avalanche  in  mid  air,  nor  the 
repetition  of  sublimity  with  each  interval  of  thousands  of  feet, 
in  which  it  strikes  and  thunders. 


CHAP,  xvii.]  JUNGFRAU  AVALANCHES.  71 

I  think  that  without  any  exception  it  was  the  grandest  sight  I 
ever  beheld,  not  even  the  cataract  of  Niagara  having  impressed 
me  with  such  thrilling  sublimity.  Ordinarily,  in  a  sunny  day  at 
noon,  the  avalanches  are  falling  on  the  Jungfrau  about  every  ten 
minutes,  with  the  roar  of  thunder,  but  they  are  much  more  sel- 
dom visible,  and  sometimes  the  traveller  crosses  the  Wengern 
Alp  without  witnessing  them  at  all.  But  we  were  so  very  highly 
favored  as  to  see  two  of  the  grandest  avalanches  possible  in  the 
course  of  about  an  hour,  between  twelve  o'clock  and  two.  One 
cannot  command  any  language  to  convey  an  adequate  idea  of 
their  magnificence. 

You  are  standing  far  below,  gazing  up  to  where  the  great  disc 
of  the  glittering  Alp  cuts  the  heavens,  and  drinking  in  the  influ- 
ence of  the  silent  scene  around.  Suddenly  an  enormous  mass 
of  snow  and  ice,  in  itself  a  mountain,  seems  to  move  ;  it  breaks 
from  the  toppling  outmost  mountain  ridge  of  snow,  where  it  is 
hundreds  of  feet  in  depth,  and  in  its  first  fall  of  perhaps  two 
thousand  feet,  is  broken  into  millions  of  fragments.  As  you  first 
see  the  flash  of  distant  artillery  by  night,  then  hear  the  roar, 
so  here  you  may  see  the  white  flashing  mass  majestically  bowing, 
then  hear  the  astounding  din.  A  cloud  of  dusty,  misty,  dry 
snow  rises  into  the  air  from  the  concussion,  forming  a  white 
volume  of  fleecy  smoke,  or  misty  light,  from  the  bosom  of  which 
thunders  forth  the  icy  torrent  in  its  second  prodigious  fall  over 
the  rocky  battlements.  The  eye  follows  it  delighted,  as  it  ploughs 
through  the  path  which  preceding  avalanches  have  worn,  till  it 
comes  to  the  brink  of  a  vast  ridge  of  bare  rock,  perhaps  more 
than"  two  thousand  feet  perpendicular.  Then  pours  the  whole 
cataract  over  the  gulf,  with  a  still  louder  roar  of  echoing  thun- 
der, to  which  nothing  but  the  noise  of  Niagara  in  its  sublimity  is 
comparable. 

Nevertheless,  you  may  think  of  the  tramp  of  an  army  of  ele- 
phants, of  the  roar  of  multitudinous  cavalry  marching  to  battle, 
of  the  whirlwind  tread  of  ten  thousand  bisons  sweeping  across 
the  prairie,  of  the  tempest  surf  of  ocean  beating  and  shaking 
the  continent,  of  the  sound  of  torrent  floods  or  of  a  numerous  host, 
or  of  the  voice  of  the  Trumpet  on  Sinai,  exceeding  loud,  and 
waxing  louder  and  louder,  so  that  all  the  people  in  the  camp 


72  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xvn. 

trembled,  or  of  the  rolling  orbs  of  that  fierce  Chariot  described 
by  Milton, 

"  Under  whose  burning  wheels 
The  steadfast  empyrean  shook  throughout." 

'  ik  r' 

It  is  with  such  a  mighty  shaking  tramp  that  the  Avalanche  down 
thunders. 

Another  fall  of  still  greater  depth  ensues,  over  a  second  simi- 
lar castellated  ridge  or  reef  in  the  face  of  the  mountain,  with  an 
awful,  majestic  slowness,  and  a  tremendous  crash  in  its  concus- 
sion, awakening  again  the  reverberating  peals  of  thunder.  Then 
the  torrent  roars  on  to  another  smaller  fall,  till  at  length  it  reaches 
a  mighty  groove  of  snow  and  ice,  like  the  slide  down  the  Pilatus, 
of  which  Play  fair  has  given  so  powerfully  graphic  a  description. 
Here  its  progress  is  slower,  and  last  of  all  you  listen  to  the  roar 
of  the  falling  fragments,  as  they  drop,  out  of  sight,  with  a  dead 
weight  into  the  bottom  of  the  gulf,  to  rest  there  for  ever. 

Now  figure  to  yourself  a  cataract  like  that  of  Niagara  (for  I 
should  judge  the  volume  of  one  of  these  avalanches  to  be  proba- 
bly every  way  superior  in  bulk  to  the  whole  of  the  Horse- 
shoe fall),  poured  in  foaming  grandeur,  not  merely  over  one 
great  precipice  of  200  feet,  but  over  the  successive  ridgy  preci- 
pices of  two  or  three  thousand,  in  the  face  of  a  mountain  eleven 
thousand  feet  high,  and  tumbling,  crashing,  thundering  down, 
with  a  continuous  din  of  far  greater  sublimity  than  the  sound  of 
the  grandest  cataract.  Placed  on  the  slope  of  the  Wengern  Alp, 
right  opposite  the  whole  visible  side  of  the  Jungfrau,  we  have 
enjoyed  two  of  these  mighty  spectacles,  at  about  half  an  hour's 
interval  between  them.  The  first  was  the  most  sublime,  the 
second  the  most  beautiful.  The  roar  of  the  falling  mass  begins 
to  be  heard  the  moment  it  is  loosened  from  the  mountain ;  it 
pours  on  with  the  sound  of  a  vast  body  of  rushing  water ;  then 
comes  the  first  great  concussion,  a  booming  crash  of  thunders, 
breaking  on  the  still  air  in  mid  heaven  ;  your  breath  is  suspended, 
as  you  listen  and  look  ;  the  mighty  glittering  mass  shoots  head- 
long over  the  main  precipice,  and  the  fall  is  so  great,  that  it  pro- 
duces to  the  eye  that  impression  of  dread  majestic  slowness,  of 


CHAP,  xvii.]  AVALANCHE  THUNDER.  73 

which  I  have  spoken,  though  it  is  doubtless  more  rapid  than 
Niagara.  But  if  you  should  see  the  cataract  of  Niagara  itself 
coming  down  five  thousand  feet  above  you  in  the  air,  there  would 
be  the  same  impression.  The  image  remains  in  the  mind,  and 
can  never  fade  from  it ;  it  is  as  if  you  had  seen  an  alabaster 
cataract  from  heaven. 

The  sound  is  far  more  sublime  than  that  of  Niagara,  because 
of  the  preceding  stillness  in  those  awful  Alpine  solitudes.  In 
the  midst  of  such  silence  and  solemnity,  from  out  the  bosom  of 
those  glorious  glittering  forms  of  nature,  comes  that  rushing, 
crashing  thunder-burst  of  sound  !  If  it  were  not  that  your  soul, 
through  the  eye,  is  as  filled  and  fixed  with  the  sublimity  of  the 
vision,  as  through  the  sense  of  hearing  with  that  of  the  audible 

o  o 

report,  methinks  you  would  wish  to  bury  your  face  in  your  hands, 
and  fall  prostrate,  as  at  the  voice  of  the  Eternal  !  But  it  is  im- 
possible to  convey  any  adequate  idea  of  the  combined  impression 
made  by  these  rushing  masses  and  rolling  thunders  upon  the 
soul.  When  you  see  the  smaller  avalanches,  they  are  of  the 
very  extreme  of  beauty,  like  jets  of  white  powder,  or  heavy 
white  mist  or  smoke,  poured  from  crag  to  crag,  like  as  if  the 
Staubach  itself  were  shot  from  the  top  of  the  Jungfrau.  Travel- 
lers do  more  frequently  see  only  these  smaller  cataracts,  in  which 
the  beautiful  predominates  over  the  sublime  ;  and  at  the  inn  they 
told  us  it  was  very  rare  to  witness  so  mighty  an  avalanche  as 
that  of  which  we  had  enjoyed  the  spectacle.  Lord  Byron  must 
have  seen  something  like  it,  when  he  and  Hobhouse  were  on  the 
mountain  together.  His  powerful  descriptions  in  Manfred  could 
have  been  drawn  from  nothing  but  the  reality. 

"  Ye  toppling  crags  of  ice, 
Ye  avalanches,  whom  a  breath  draws  down, 
In  mountainous  o'erwhelming,  come  and  crush  me  ! 
I  hear  ye  momently,  above,  beneath, 
Crush  with  a  frequent  conflict:  but  ye  pass, 
And  only  fall  on  things  that  still  would  live  ; 
On  the  young  flourishing  forest,  or  the  hut 
And  hamlet  of  the  harmless  villager. 
The  mists  boil  up  around  the  glaciers ;  clouds 
Rise  curling  far  beneath  me,  white  and  sulphury, 
Like  foam  from  the  roused  ocean  of  deep  hell." 


74  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xvm. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Mortar-avalanches.     Valley  and  glaciers  of  Grindlewald. 

Now  must  we  leave  this  scene,  refreshed  both  in  body  and  spirit, 
and  travel  on  higher,  still  higher,  to  the  summit  of  the  pass. 
The  Jungfrau  with  her  diadem  of  virgin  snow  is  still  before  us, 
singing  her  hymns  of  thunder,  and  the  sharp  enormous  mass  of 
the  Eigher  shoots  out  almost  in  front.  The  avalanches  are  still 
falling  at  short  intervals,  but  chiefly  on  the  other  side  of  the 
mountain,  produced  by  the  echoes  of  guns,  fired  from  the  Wen- 
gern  side.  This  is  the  method  resorted  to  for  bringing  down  the 
hanging  masses  of  snow,  by  the  concussion  of  the  air,  when  the 
avalanches  do  not  occur  voluntarily  in  sight  of  travellers,  in 
order,  if  possible,  that  they  may  not  be  obliged  to  pass  the  moun- 
tain without  witnessing  this  greatest  of  Alpine  sublimities.  And 
even  these  mortar-avalanches  are  well  worth  seeing.  But  they 
cannot  be  so  sublime  as  those  which  Nature  produces  of  her 
own  proper  motion.  Besides,  it  is  quite  intolerable  to  find  every, 
thing  for  sale ;  to  be  buying  a  look  at  an  avalanche,  just  like 
some  popular  wonder,  where  the  keeper  stands  with  the  string  of 
the  curtain  in  his  hand,  ready  to  disclose  the  mysteries  so  soon 
as  you  have  deposited  your  shilling.  So  you  get  an  avalanche 
with  a  sixpence  worth  of  powder,  as  if  you  had  gone  to  visit  the 
Zoological  Gardens,  or  Dr.  Koch's  Hydrargos.  Really  one 
would  rather  wait  upon  the  mountain  for  days,  and  talk  alone 
with  nature,  permitting  her  to  indulge  her  own  fancies. 

On  the  highest  part  of  the  pass  we  found  a  vender  of  straw, 
berries,  cakes,  and  cream,  with  a  stout  little  cannon  and  plenty 
of  ammunition.  For  a  dish  of  strawberries  he  charged  only  a 
single  batz,  or  three  cents,  and  half  this  sum  for  firing  his  can- 
non !  Probably  it  was  because  most  of  our  party  were  Germans ; 
but  whatever  men  may  say  of  Swiss  prices,  there  was  no  extortion 


CHAP,  xvm.]  VIEW  OF  GRINDLEWALD.  75 

here,  neither  at  the  Hotel  of  the  Mountain ;  and  at  either  place 
they  would  be  justified  in  charging  quite  inordinately.  Here  a 
man  may  shoot  avalanches,  as  he  would  bring  down  pigeons 
on  the  wing,  but  he  cannot  always  bag  his  game.  He  hears 
the  swift  crashing  mass,  but  sees  nothing.  The  virtue  of  our 
strawberry-lad's  cannon  was  thus  tested,  and  each  time  the  re- 
port was  followed,  after  a  moment  or  two  of  silence,  by  two 
rushing  ice-falls,  but  apparently  on  the  other  side  of  the  moun- 
tain, with  a  sound  as  of  buried  thunder. 

The  view  from  the  summit  of  the  pass  towards  Grindlewald 
is  very  magnificent,  for  you  see  the  whole  green  and  lovely  val- 
ley, amidst  its  grand  surrounding  mountains,  and  can  even  dis- 
tinguish afar  off  the  inn  on  the  pass  of  the  Grand  Scheideck. 
The  snowy  peaks  of  the  Jungfrau,  13,718  feet  above  the  level 
of  the  sea,  the  Monch,  13,598  feet,  and  the  Giant  Eigher,  13,070 
feet,  are  in  full  sight ;  also,  as  you  proceed,  the  Wetterhorn,  or 
Peak  of  Tempests,  the  Schreckhorn,  or  Peak  of  Terror,  and  the 
Finster-Aarhorn,  or  Peak  of  Darkness,  come  into  the  vision,  the 
latter,  with  its  sharp  sky  pointed  pyramid,  being  the  loftiest  of 
the  Oberland  group.  Well  named  are  these  mighty  peaks,  for 
Terror,  Storm,  and  Darkness  do  here  hold  their  sway  through 
no  small  part  of  the  year,  though,  on  such  a  bright  midsummer's 
day  as  we  are  passing,  with  what  glittering,  varied,  successive 
splendors  do  they  crown  the  view  !  You  can  scarcely  take  your 
eye  from  them,  so  exciting  and  transcendently  beautiful  is  the 
scene,  even  to  watch  the  difficult  rough  path  by  which  you  are 
travelling.  There  are  within  sight  of  it  the  traces  of  the  path 
of  an  enormous  avalanche,  which  swept  down  whole  woods,  as 
the  sweep  of  a  mower's  scythe  cuts  clean  the  grass,  and  leaves 
the  dry  stubble. 

The  glacier  of  Grindlewald  is  seen  at  the  bottom  of  the  Val- 
ley, having  pushed  itself  out  through  a  mountain  gorge  from  the 
everlasting  Empire  of  Winter,  down  amidst  the  habitations  of 
man,  by  the  green  pastures  and  gardens  and  sunny  brooks  of 
summer.  A  little  more,  and  it  might  hang  its  icy  dripping 
caverns  over  the  heads  of  the  haymakers,  though  now  you  enter 
those  caverns  at  a  point  much  below  the  sloping  meadows,  where 
the  mowers  are  busy  with  their  scythes.  The  body  of  the  glacier, 


76  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xvm. 

that  at  this  point  extends  its  advanced  post  into  the  green  valley, 
winds,  it  is  said,  among  the  Alps  of  the  Oberland  to  the  immense 
extent  of  115  square  miles.  You  visit  this  Lower  Glacier  of 
Grindlewald  on  your  way  down  from  the  Wengern  Alp,  and  you 
find  a  scene,  which  in  some  respects  is  the  Mont-Anvert  of 
Chamouny  over  again.  The  cavern,  from  which  issues  one  of 
the  two  rivers  that  form  the  Lutschinen,  seems  not  so  large  as 
that  of  the  Arveiron  in  Chamouny,  although  the  entrance  to  it 
is  said  to  form  a  magnificent  arch  seventy  feet  high.  The  color 
of  the  ice  is  exquisitely  clear,  sparkling,  and  beautiful,  whereas 
at  the  foot  of  the  Chamouny  glacier  it  is  grey  and  dingy.  The 
mountains  that  rise  around  this  glacier  of  Grindlewald,  the  ex- 
quisite green  of  the  valley,  the  exciting  contrast  in  the  land- 
scapes, the  soft  pastures  and  black  forests  of  fir  skirting  and 
fringing  such  oceans  of  frost,  and  craggy  ridges  and  peaks  of 
ice  and  snow,  present  a  strange,  wild,  lovely  scene  to  the  im- 
agination, both  grand  and  lovely,  with  such  startling  alternations 
as  you  meet  no  where  else  but  in  dreams. 

From  my  room  in  the  evening  at  the  inn  I  could  see,  or  seemed 
in  the  distance  to  see,  the  whole  of  this  glacier.  An  excursion 
upon  it  would  have  detained  me  a  day  of  this  bright  weather 
(and  who  could  tell  how  soon  it  might  change,  leaving  me  impri- 
soned among  the  mountains?),  but  the  visit  would  have  been  almost 
as  interesting  as  the  exploring  of  the  glaciers  of  Mont-Anvert. 
A  sea  of  ice  and  snow  spreads  out  before  us,  from  which  rises  in 
awful  sublimity  the  vast  peak  of  the  Schreckhorn,  and  here  you 
may  enter  the  very  deepest  recesses  of  winter,  shut  out  from 
every  sign  of  life  and  verdure.  How  sublime  the  scenery  of  this 
Valley  !  for  every  successive  generation  the  same  impressive 
grandeur.  While  spring,  summer,  autumn,  winter,  have  danced 
their  changing  life  of  glory  and  gloom  together,  from  creation's 
dawn,  tempest  and  storm  have  made  these  peaks  their  habitation, 
and  will  do  so  while  the  world  lasts.  What  a  day  of  sublime 
and  beautiful  visions  has  this  been  !  It  is  almost  too  much  of 
glory  to  be  crowded  into  one  such  short  interval.  One  scarcely 
notes  the  fatigue  of  the  passage,  in  the  constant  excitement  of 
mind  produced  by  such  glorious  forms  of  nature. 

With  what  undying  beauty  does  the  moon  pour  her  soft  light 


CHAP,  xvm.]  GRINDLEWALD  VILLAGE.  77 

into  the  deep  snowy  recesses  of  the  glacier,  or  rather  of  the  vast 
abyss,  round  which  the  sides  of  mountains  sheeted  with  eternal 
ice  form  perpendicular  barriers,  where  avalanches  shoot  down  to 
bury  themselves  as  in  an  ocean.  The  scene  is  still  and  solemn. 
The  glacier  is  so  near,  that  the  dwelling-houses  seem  almost  to 
touch  it.  The  moon  is  now  shooting  her  light  up  from  behind 
the  vast  mountain  of  the  Wetterhorn,  streaming  across  the  Met- 
tenberg,  and  gilding  the  snowy  outlines  of  the  scenery,  till  they 
look  like  the  edges  of  the  silvery  clouds.  Dante  has  some  lines 
in  his  celestial  Paradise  that  might  well  be  descriptive  of  this 
scene.  The  cornice  of  snow  running  round  the  inner  walls  of 
the  mountains  and  the  glaciers  looks  like  the  cornices  of  Egyp- 
tian Temples. 

The  guides  at  Grindlewald  seemed  to  enjoy  themselves  after 
the  day's  various  excursions,  carrying  their  merriment  deep  into 
the  night.  From  all  quarters  travellers  are  collected  in  the  vil- 
lage to  scatter  again  across  the  mountain  passes  in  the  morning, 
some  back  to  Interlachen,  some  over  the  Wengern  Alp  to  Lau- 
terbrunnen,  some  for  the  glaciers,  some  across  the  Grand  Schei- 
deck.  The  little  valley  is  a  central  mirror  both  of  the  grandeur 
and  beauty  of  Swiss  scenery.  The  village  is  in  clusters  of  pic- 
turesque cottages,  scattered  along  the  grassy  upland  slopes,  and 
winding  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  vale.  The  people  must  sub- 
sist principally  by  the  pasturage  of  their  cattle,  and  the  products 
of  the  dairy,  with  some  chamois  hunting ;  for  Spring,  Summer, 
and  Autumn  are  all  condensed  into  five  short  months,  leaving  the 
rest  of  the  year  to  undisputed  winter,  and  mingling  the  instability 
of  all  seasons  into  one.  The  thick  forest-like  verdure  of  the 
Valley  of  Lauterbrunnen  is  missing  here,  though  the  two  vales 
are  about  the  same  height  above  the  sea.  Lauterbrunnen  is  a 
deep,  entire,  colossal,  perpendicular  cleft  in  the  mountains,  an 
oblong  shaft  as  in  a  mine ;  Grindlewald  is  a  more  gradual  basin 
between  gigantic  ascending  peaks  and  passes.  In  either  Valley 
how  appropriate  are  those  texts  from  Scripture,  which  sometimes 
run  round  the  wooden  galleries  of  the  cottages.  Inscribed  when 
the  dwellings  were  erected,  they  are  as  an  heir-loom  of  piety,  as 
the  voice  of  an  ancestral  patriarch  still  speaking.  "  By  the  help  of 
God,  in  whom  is  my  trust,"  says  one  of  these  devout  mementos, 


78  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xvm. 

"  I  have  erected  this  for  my  habitation,  and  commend  the  same 
to  his  gracious  protection.  1781."  Surely  it  is  a  good  and  plea- 
sant custom.  "  Because  thou  hast  made  the  Most  High  thy 
habitation,  there  shall  no  evil  befall  thee,  neither  shall  any  plague 
come  nigh  thy  dwelling." 

In  the  morning,  when  ascending  from  the  Valley,  peak  after 
peak  comes  into  view,  with  the  bright  sun  successively  striking 
them.  At  length  you  see  at  once  the  two  glaciers,  with  the  peaks 
of  the  Schreckhorn,  the  Eigher,  the  Wetterhorn,  the  Mettenberg, 
and  far  across  the  Wengern  Alp,  the  range  of  snowy  summits 
beyond  Lauterbrunnen.  The  sunrise  is  beautifully  reported  from 
point  to  point,  with  the  rays  of  light  gilding  and  silvering  the 
edges  and  crags  of  the  mountain. 

Almost  every  grand  scene  in  Switzerland  has  its  story  or  le- 
gend of  sad  things  or  supernatural  connected  with  it.  The  acci- 
dents and  escapes  of  ages  are  chronicled  in  tradition,  as  the 
battles  of  the  mountain  heroes  are  in  history.  It  is  said  that 
one  of  the  former  innkeepers  at  Grindlewald,  Christopher  Bohren, 
was  once  on  his  way  across  the  glacier  between  the  Wetterhorn 
and  the  Mettenberg,  when  the  ice  broke  beneath  him,  and  he 
was  plunged  down  a  cavity  of  some  sixty-four  feet.  He  was 
not  killed  by  the  fall,  but  his  arm  was  broken.  There  was  no 
possibility  of  an  ascent,  and  this  gulf  seemed  to  enclose  him  for 
the  resurrection,  in  a  sepulchre  of  ice,  himself  embalmed  while 
living,  by  the  Magician  Frost,  to  sit  there  as  a  staring  ice-mum- 
my, for  ever.  Nevertheless,  there  was  the  sound  of  dripping 
and  gurgling  water,  and  on  groping  round  he  discovered  a  chan- 
nel worn  in  the  ice,  into  which  he  could  just  creep  and  advance 
painfully,  if  it  might  possibly  issue  to  the  day.  There  was  a 
hope,  and  it  kept  the  fingers  of  the  frost  from  his  heart,  and  ani- 
mated him  to  drag  his  bruised  and  stiffened  limbs  along  the  drip, 
ping  ice-fissure,  thinking  of  his  wife  and  children.  What  a 
terrible  situation !  Would  he  ever  again  see  the  blue  sky,  and 
the  green  grass,  and  the  curling  smoke  from  the  chalets  of  the 
village  ?  Would  he  hear  the  voices  of  friends  searching  for 
him  ?  Could  he  live  till  they  should  miss  him  ?  Would  he  ever 
again  see  the  face  of  a  human  being  ?  Thus  groping  in  the 
heart  of  the  glacier,  suddenly  he  came  to  the  outlet  of  the  tor- 


CHAP,  xvm.]  JUNGFRAU  AVALANCHES.  79 

rent,  which    had  worn  for  him  the  channel,  and  following  its 
plainer  and  more  open  course,  he  was  extricated  and  saved  ! 

Not  longer  ago  than  1821,  M.  Mouron,  a  clergyman  from  Ve- 
vay,  lost  his  life  in  visiting  the  lower  glacier.  He  was  not  with- 
out a  guide,  but  not  being  tied  to  him,  fell  into  one  of  the  yawn- 
ing crevices  in  the  ice,  a  gulf  of  near  700  feet  in  depth,  and 
must  have  been  killed  instantly.  Twelve  days  afterward  the 
body  of  the  unfortunate  traveller  was  found  and  brought  up  to 
the  day  by  tying  a  guide  to  a  rope,  and  letting  him  down  into  the 
abyss  with  a  lantern.  After  several  attempts  of  this  nature, 
the  persevering  hunter,  though  exhausted  by  the  want  of  air, 
succeeding  in  attaching  the  corpse  to  his  own  body.  A  watch 
and  purse  found  upon  it  redeemed  the  guide  from  the  murderous 
suspicions  which  had  rested  upon  him,  and  the  dead  traveller  was 
buried  in  the  parish  church.  There  is  great  danger  in  walking 
upon  or  along  the  sharp  edges  of  the  almost  fathomless  gulfs  in 
these  glaciers.  You  may  think  yourself  very  careful,  but  then 
you  are  to  remember  also  the  inevitable  fatal  consequences  of  a 
single  slip,  or  of  one  false  step,  or  even  of  an  uncertain  move- 
ment. There  are  sometimes  similar  situations  in  life,  where  a 
man's  path,  be  it  wrong  or  right,  leads  across  great  dangers,  and 
one  false  or  presumptuous  step  is  the  misery  of  a  life-time.  A 
decision,  which  it  takes  but  an  instant  io  make,  it  may  cost  years 
to  recover  from.  A  man  is  a  fool,  who  ventures  amidst  such 
hazards,  except  at  the  call  of  truth  and  duty. 


80  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.          [CHAP.  xix. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Pass  of  the  Scheideck  to  Meyringen. 

I  FIND  that  I  have  recorded  the  scenes  of  this  day  in  my  journal, 
as  having  been  so  varied  and  so  beautiful  as  to  be  almost  fatigu- 
ing. The  feeling  of  fatigue  is  gone  ;  I  do  not  at  all  remember 
it ;  but  the  sense  of  beauty  is  eternal.  We  started  from  Grin- 
dlewald  early,  and  visit  the  Upper  Glacier.  There  is  a  little 
lake  of  water  at  its  margin,  a  crystal  cup  as  it  were,  where 
the  glacier,  the  mountains  and  the  heavens  are  reflected  with 
wonderful  depth  and  beauty.  An  old  man  met  us,  who  acts  as 
guide  into  the  glacier,  and  who  told  us  he  had  twenty-four  chil- 
dren, ten  by  his  first  wife,  and  fourteen  by  his  second.  He  was 
a  droll  old  fellow,  this  ice  guide,  looking  indeed  immeasurably 
old,  but  entering  with  a  great  deal  of  youthful  cheerfulness  into 
the  blithesome  humor  of  the. young  travellers  about  him.  Under 
his  guidance  we  entered  a  cavern  in  the  glacier,  a  deep  crystal 
ravine,  high  enough  to  advance  upright,  without  touching  the 
pointed  roof,  winding  quite  a  distance  into  the  body  of  the  glacier, 
whose  superincumbent  mountain  masses  will  one  day  crush  it. 
The  ice-walls  are  of  an  exquisite  and  almost  perfectly  transparent 
emerald  or  azure,  smooth  as  glass,  and  dripping  with  water  as 
cold  as  the  ice  itself.  It  was  a  hazardous  position  for  the  travel- 
ler, for  the  roof  of  this  cavern  of  azure  ice  is  sure  to  fall,  and  it 
might  as  well  fall  while  we  were  there,  as  at  any  other  time,  but 
we  entered  and  came  forth  in  safety.  An  entombment  alive  in 
such  a  sepulchre  would  have  been  far  worse  than  a  fall  of  ten 
thousand  feet  among  the  icy  precipices. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  what  it  is  that  gives  to  the  ice  of  these 
glaciers  so  beautiful  a  color.  It  is  this  partly  which  makes  them 
so  much  more  beautiful  than  those  of  Chamouny ;  at  the  same 
time,  that  their  peaks  and  minarets  are  so  varied,  their  depths  so 


CHAP,  xix.]  SIGHTS  IN  FINE  WEATHER.  81 


enormous,  and  the  step  from  them  into  the  depths  of  an  intense 
summer  verdure  so  sudden  and  startling.  They  are  a  forest  of 
icebergs,  that  have  marched  down  to  bid  defiance  to  the  forest  of 
firs.  From  the  height  of  the  Grand  Scheideck  the  glacier  is  a 
most  magnificent  object,  as  also  are  the  glittering  mountain  bar- 
riers,  silent,  stern,  and  awful,  that  enclose  it.  How  different  your 
feelings  when  you  are  in  the  depths  of  the  Valley,  with  the  moun- 
tains shutting  you  in  and  keeping  watch  over  you,  looking  down 
upon  you  with  their  grand  and  awful  countenances,  and  those 
which  you  experience  when  you  ascend  so  high  as  to  command 
both  them  and  your  former  position  in  one  view,  when  you  rise  to 
a  point,  whence  you  can  look  in  among  them,  count  and  compare 
their  masses,  and  confront  their  brightness  from  their  foundations 
to  their  topmost  summits.  But  you  must  have  fine  weather. 
Scarce  one  feature  of  all  this  glory  is  to  be  seen,  if  you  are  tra- 
velling in  the  mist,  if  the  clouds  are  low,  or  the  rain  is  pouring. 

It  is  like  the  progress  of  the  soul  in  the  study  of  divine  truth. 
Your  atmosphere  must  be  clear,  the  sun  shining.  There  are  days 
when  clouds  cover  everything,  days  of  rain,  and  days  of  mist, 
and  seasons  of  tremendous  tempest.  When  you  are  in  the  val- 
ley, it  does  not  make  so  much  difference.  There  is  a  portion  of 
truth,  which  is  visible  at  all  times,  green  grass,  still  waters,  quiet 
meadows,  though  you  may  not  see  a  single  mountain  summit. 
Down  in  such  a  quiet  depth,  the  great  mysterious  truths  of  the 
system  that  surrounds  you,  overshadow  you  and  shut  you  in. 
But  if  you  would  see  their  glory,  there  is  much  labor  of  the  soul 
needed  ;  you  must  toil  upwards,  you  must  have  bright  weather 
in  the  soul,  and  by  and  by  you  gain  a  point,  where  you  survey 
the  mighty  system  ;  its  glittering  masses  and  ranges  stretch  off 
below,  above,  around  you ;  its  sky-pointing  summits  pierce  the 
upper  depths  of  heaven  ;  here  you  must  have  faith,  you  must 
be  somewhat  with  John  in  Patmos,  in  the  Spirit ;  for  if  the  mist 
is  around  you,  you  can  see  nothing,  but  if  the  sun  is  shining, 
what  an  infinitude  of  glory  opens  to  your  view  ! 

While  on  the  Grand  Scheideck,  we  enjoyed  the  sight  of  a  most 
beautiful  Avalanche ;  it  was  the  extreme  of  beauty,  but  without 
the  sublimity  of  those  we  have  witnessed  the  day  before.  If  this 
had  been  all  that  we  had  seen,  we  should  have  deemed  the  de- 

PART    II.  7 


82  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xix. 

scriptions  sometimes  given  to  be  altogether  exaggerated.  The 
traveller  in  Switzerland  is  unfortunate,  who  does  not  see  a  genu- 
ine avalanche  on  a  grand  scale.  But  this  was  very  beautiful ; 
first  a  sudden  jet  from  the  mountain,  like  a  rocket  of  white 
smoke,  then  the  fall  of  the  whole  mass  of  ice  and  snow  with  a 
cloud  rising  from  it,  and  a  rush  of  small  thunder,  like  the  roar 
of  a  waterfall. 

From  the  Grand  Scheideck  down  into  the  Valley  of  Hasli  at 
Meyringen,  the  journey  is  one  of  indescribable,  and  to  a  man 
that  knows  nothing  of  Alpine  scenery,  inconceivable  magnificence. 
It  is  true  that  the  prospect  before  you,  as  you  pass  down  towards 
Rosenlaui,  is  not  so  remarkable  for  its  grandeur,  as  the  scenes 
you  have  already  passed  through ;  but  behind  you,  in  the  even- 
ing sun,  the  way  is  a  perspective  of  lengthening  glory,  where  the 
snowy  mountains,  seen  through  the  forests  of  firs,  and  overhang- 
ing them,  floating,  as  it  were,  in  a  heaven  of  golden  light,  give 
to  the  eye  a  vision  of  contrasts  and  splendors,  the  like  of  which 
may  possibly  no  where  else  be  presented. 

Such  is  sometimes  the  difference  between  experience  and  an- 
ticipation. A  man's  early  life  is  often  so  much  pleasanter  and 
more  prosperous  than  his  late,  that  the  retrospect  looks  full  of  rich 
and  mellow  scenes,  lovely  remembrances  in  soft  enchanting 
colors,  while  the  prospect  is  destitute  of  beauty,  or  sometimes  is 
filled  with  foreboded  tempests.  Many  a  man  in  the  decline  of 
life  seems  going  down  into  gloom  from  a  mountain-top  of  glory, 
and  all  the  light  of  his  existence  shines  to  him  from  behind.  But 
this  cannot  be  the  case  with  a  Christian.  The  brightest  prospect 
is  before  him.  That  man  is  happy  who  loves  to  dwell  upon  the 
future,  upon  what  is  in  reserve  for  him.  That  man  is  happy, 
who  sees,  over  the  storms  of  his  past  life,  a  bow  of  promise, 
created  by  a  setting  sun,  that  is  to  rise  in  glory.  A  guilty  man 
cannot  love  to  dwell  upon  the  past,  unless  he  be  a  penitent  man, 
a  man  of  faith,  who  sees  in  the  past  the  commencement  and  pro- 
phecy of  a  better  future.  The  saying  of  the  ancient  moralist 
was  uttered  without  much  knowledge  of  its  whole  meaning : 

"  Hoc  est  vivere  bis 
Vita  posse  priore  frui." 


CHAP,  xix.]  THE  CROSS  ON  THE  PAST.  83 

"  'Tis  living  twice, 

To  enjoy  past  life." 

For,  who  can  enjoy  his  past  life,  unless  the  light  of  the  Cross  be 
shining  upon  it  ?  No  man  can  do  it,  without  some  great  and 
dreadful  delusion,  for  the  only  light  of  hope,  or  material  of  good- 
ness and  blessedness  in  the  Past,  comes  from  the  Cross  of  Christ. 
But  where  that  is  shining,  how  it  floods  the  mountain  passes  of 
our  existence  with  glory  ! 


84  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xx. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Glacier  of  Rosenlaui  and  Falls  of  the  Reichenbach. 

ON  your  way  down,  you  have  the  excursion  to  the  glacier  of 
Rosenlaui,  celebrated  for  the  extreme  beauty  of  its  roseate  and 
azure  colors.  It  lies  in  a  mighty  mountain  gorge  on  our  right, 
far  up  between  the  great  masses  of  the  Wellborn  and  the  Angels' 
Peaks  (Engelhorner),  a  most  remarkable  scene,  both  in  itself  and 
its  accessories,  the  ice-born  picture,  its  fir-clad  base,  and  its 
gigantic  craggy  frame.  A  thundering  torrent  comes  roaring 
down  an  almost  fathomless  split  in  the  mountain,  where  the  jag- 
ged sides  threaten  each  other  like  the  jaws  of  hell.  Torrents 
from  different  directions  meet  fiercely  at  the  foot  of  the  glacier, 
which  is  thrown  over  them  as  a  mountain  of  ice,  with  vast  ice 
blocks  roofing  the  subterranean  fissure,  with  a  mighty  peak  of 
rock  towering  above,  and  a  mountain  of  granite  on  the  other  side. 
You  enter  the  bosom  of  the  glacier  by  steps  cut  for  you  by  the 
guide,  at  the  risk  of  tumbling  into  the  conflict  of  waters  below. 
The  surrounding  forests  of  fir,  the  cataracts,  the  ice-cliffs  shining, 
and  the  grey  bare  crags,  keeping  watch  like  sentinels,  together 
with  the  extreme  picturesqueness  and  beauty  of  the  Valley  open- 
ing out  beneath,  make  up  a  scene  well  worth  the  toil  of  climbing 
to  it. 

Now  you  take  the  way  down  from  Rosenlaui  to  Meyringen ; 
looking  behind  you,  it  is  still  inexpressibly  beautiful,  more  beau- 
tiful than  the  vision  of  the  vale.  It  is  because  of  the  combina- 
tion between  the  snow,  the  sun,  and  the  black  fir  forest,  the  firs 
against  the  snow,  the  snow  against  the  sun,  the  air  a  flood  of 
glory.  Through  a  winding  vale  of  firs  the  great  white  moun- 
tains flash  upon  you,  now  hidden  and  now  revealed  ;  and  of  all 
sights  in  Switzerland,  that  of  the  bright  snow  summits  seen 
through  and  amidst  such  masses  of  deep  overshadowing  foliage, 


CHAP,  xx.]  REICHENBACH  CASCADE.  85 

by  which  you  may  be  buried  in  twilight  at  noonday,  is  the  most 
picturesque  and  wildly  beautiful.  Between  four  o'clock  and 
sunset  this  Rosenlaui  pass,  in  a  bright  day,  is  wonderful.  The 
white  perfect  cones  and  pyramids  of  some  of  the  summits  alter- 
nate with  the  bare  rocky  needles  and  ridges  of  others,  all  dis- 
tinctly defined  against  the  sky,  with  the  light  falling  on  them  in  a 
wild  magic  azure-tinted  clearness.  Here  is  one  section  or  qua- 
drature of  the  picture  as  you  look  upwards  to  the  heights  down 
which  you  have  been  so  long  descending ;  far  off,  up  in  the 
heavens  a  vast  curling  ridge  of  snow  cuts  the  azure  upper  deep ; 
nearer,  the  enormous  grey  peak  of  the  Wellborn  shoots  above  it ; 
lower,  towards  this  world,  between  two  great  mountains,  down 
rushes  the  magnificent  glacier  of  Rosenlaui,  till  its  glittering 
masses,  which  seem  ready  to  take  one  plunge  out  of  heaven  to 
earth,  are  lost  to  your  eye  behind  the  green  depths  of  the  forest. 

But  if  we  stay  looking  at  this  scene  and  still  loitering  and 
looking  behind  us,  we  shall  not  get  to  Meyringen  till  night-fall. 
So  down  we  climb,  beside  the  roaring  torrent,  which  is  impetu- 
ously plunging  and  foaming  to  take  the  leap  of  the  Reichenbach 
fall,  not  at  all  knowing  what  awaits  us,  when  suddenly  comes 
another  of  those  swift,  vast  contrasts,  those  mighty  shiftings  of 
scenery,  so  unexpected  and  unthought  of,  as  in  a  dream.  As  if 
the  world's  walls  had  opened  before  you,  and  you  had  just  lighted 
with  wings  on  a  shelving  precipice  to  look  forth,  the  Vale  of 
Meyringen  is  disclosed  far  beneath,  with  its  village  and  meadows, 
church  steeples  and  clumps  of  trees,  and  the  bright  Alpbach  cas- 
cade pouring  over  the  crags  on  the  other  side.  From  the  point 
where  you  stand,  the  descent  into  the  Vale  is  near  two  thousand 
feet,  rugged  and  precipitous,  and  from  nearly  your  present  level, 
the  stream  of  the  Reichenbach  takes  its  grand  leap  down  the 
gorge  at  your  left,  making  the  celebrated  Reichenbach  Falls, 
and  afterwards,  by  a  succession  of  leaps  not  quite  so  grand,  it 
races,  foaming  and  thundering,  over  precipice  after  precipice, 
through  black  jagged  picturesque  tortuous  ravines  down  into  the 
Valley  to  join  the  Aar. 

One  would  think  the  two  rivers  would  be  glad  to  have 
a  moment's  peace,  and  pleasant,  gurgling  communion,  after 
such  a  furious  daring  cataractical  course  of  foam  and  thun- 


86  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xx. 

der.  Each  of  them  has  come  down  out  of  ice-palaces  as 
from  the  alabaster  gates  of  heaven,  and  each  has  made,  in  its 
perilous  course,  one  of  the  grandest  cataracts  in  all  Switzerland, 
Now  they  flow  on  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  like  generous 
minds  after  some  great  action.  Methinks  they  are  saying  one  to 
another,  as  their  waters  meet  and  mingle,  How  much  pleasanter 
it  is  to  be  gliding  on  so  quietly  between  green  banks  and  rich 
meadows,  than  to  be  tumbling  over  the  mountains,  where  we  seem 
to  be  of  no  use  whatever,  but  for  great  parties  of  English  people 
to  come  and  look  at  us  through  their  eye-glasses.  But  you  are 
mistaken,  gentle  streams.  Perhaps  you  have  done  more  good, 
by  the  grand  thoughts  your  "  unceasing  thunder  and  eternal 
foam "  have  given  rise  to  in  your  perilous  career  among  the 
mountains,  than  you  will  do  in  your  path  of  verdure  all  the  way 
to  the  sea.  It  is  not  the  sole  use  of  streams  like  yours  to  make 
the  grasses  and  the  flowers  to  grow,  or  to  enjoy  yourselves  among 
them.  But  we  cannot  wonder  that  you  do  not  wish  to  be  always 
playing  the  Cataract. 


CHAP,  xxi.]  VOICES  OF  EVENING.  87 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

Twilight,  Evening,  and  Night  in  Switzerland.     A  Sabbath  in  Meyringen. 

THE  stillness  of  evening  in  Switzerland  is  accompanied  with  a 
soft  music  from  the  thousand  mountain  torrents,  which  roar  with 
such  a  shouting  voice  at  noon  day,  loosened  by  the  sun  from  the 
glaciers,  and  then  subside  into  a  more  quiet,  soul-like  melody.  It 
is  like  the  wind,  strong  blowing  on  an  Eolian  Harp  with  loud 
strains,  and  then  sinking  down  into  faint  aerial  murmurs.  So  at 
evening,  the  streams  being  partially  pent  up  again  in  ice,  the 
sound  grows  less  in  body,  but  more  distinct  in  tone,  and  more  in 
unison  with  the  sacred  stillness  of  the  hour.  It  is  like  changing 
the  stops  in  an  organ.  The  effect  has  been  noted  both  by  plain 
prose  travellers  and  imaginative  poets,  and  nothing  can  be  more 
beautiful.  The  lulled  evening  hum  of  the  busy  world,  and  the 
dim  twilight  of  the  air,  and  the  gradual  stealing  forth  of  the 
modest  stars  after  the  heat  and  glare  of  day,  are  in  harmony. 
As  in  Milton, 

"  At  last  a  soft  and  solemn-breathing  sound 
Rose  like  a  steam  of  rich-distilled  perfumes, 
And  stole  upon  the  air." 

For  at  such  an  hour  the  music  of  nature,  passing  into  solemn 
voices  of  the  night,  seems  rather  like  the  hushing  strains  from 
invisible  harps  of  celestial  intelligences  floating  in  the  atmosphere, 
than  like  any  music  from  material  things.  Some  of  the  finest 
lines  ever  composed  by  the  Poet  Rogers  were  called  forth  by  the 
perception  of  these  stilly  notes  and  almost  imperceptible  harmo- 
nies of  evening.  I  say  almost  imperceptible,  because  a  man 
busied  with  external  things,  or  even  engaged  in  social  talk,  will 
scarce  notice  them.  The  mind  must  be  in  somewhat  of  a  pen- 
sive mood,  and  watching  with  the  finer  senses.  A  traveller  must 
be  alone,  or  must  say  to  his  friend,  Hush  !  listen  ! 


88  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

"  Oft  at  the  silent,  shadowy  close  of  day, 
When  the  hushed  grove  has  sung  its  parting  lay, 
When  pensive  twilight,  in  her  dusky  car, 
Comes  slowly  on  to  meet  the  evening  star, 
Above,  below,  aerial  murmurs  swell 
From  hanging  wood,  brown  heath,  and  bushy  dell ! 
A  thousand  nameless  rills,  that  shun  the  light, 
Stealing  soft  music  on  the  ear  of  night. 
So  oft  the  finer  movements  of  the  soul, 
That  shun  the  sphere  of  pleasure's  gay  control, 
In  the  still  shades  of  calm  seclusion  rise, 
And  breathe  their  sweet  seraphic  harmonies  !" 

PLEASURES  OF  MEMORY. 

This  is  very  beautiful.  Do  we  not  at  such  an  hour,  more  than 
any  other,  feel  as  if  we  were  sojourning,  in  the  striking  language 
of  Foster,  "  on  that  frontier,  where  the  material  and  the  ideal 
worlds  join  and  combine  their  elements  ?"  It  is  the  hour,  when 
Isaac-like,  the  solitary  saint  in  the  country,  if  not  in  the  city, 

"  Walks  forth  to  meditate  at  even-tide," 

and  thinks  upon  a  world  that  thinks  not  for  herself.  It  is  the 
hour,  when  among  the  mountains  or  in  the  villages,  the  soul  seems 
sometimes  to  see  far  out  beyond  the  verge  of  Time,  seems  to  feel 
the  horizon  of  existence  expanding,  seems  to  be  upon  the  sea-side, 
and  is  impelled,  as  in  the  beautiful  image  of  Young,  to 

"  Walk  thoughtful  on  the  silent,  solemn  shore 
Of  that  vast  Ocean,  she  must  sail  so  soon  !" 

Delightful  it  is,  when  Saturday  evening  comes,  with  such 
calm  and  sacred  voices  and  influences  of  nature,  if  the  soul  is 
in  the  right  mood,  to  hear  the  prelude  wherewith  it  seems  as  if 
nature  herself  would  put  man  in  harmony  for  the  Sabbath. 

"  It  is  a  beauteous  evening,  calm  and  free  ; 
The  holy  time  is  quiet  as  a  Nun 
Breathless  with  adoration  ;  the  broad  sun 
Is  sinking  down  in  its  tranquillity  ; 
Listen  !  the  mighty  Being  is  awake, 
And  doth  with  his  eternal  motion  make 
A  sound  like  thunder — everlastingly !" — WORDSWORTH. 


CHAP,  xxi.]  VOICES  OF  EVENING.  89 

There  is  the  feeling,  if  not  the  audible  sense,  of  a  similar  sound 
among  the  mountains,  though  inland  far  we  be,  the  sound  as  of 
waters  rolling  on  the  shore  of  another  world,  whether  we  call  it, 
with  Wordsworth,  the  sound  of  that  Immortal  Sea  that  brought 
us  hither,  or  content  ourselves  with  saying  in  plain  prose  that  it 
is  the  ever  brooding  sense  of  our  Immortality,  which  no  immor- 
tal accountable  being  can  ever  shake  from  his  constitution. 

And  now  as  I  have  quoted  so  many  poets,  drawn  by  the 
analogy  of  that  hour  in  human  existence,  which  seems  some- 
times to  have  collected  both  religious  and  irreligious  writers  to- 
gether in  the  same  Porch,  before  the  inner  Temple  of  Devotion, 
under  the  same  irresistible  influences,  I  will  add  one  extract  from 
a  great  Poet  who  has  entered  that  Temple,  and  not  merely  stood 
and  sung  without ;  a  Poet  of  America,  who  has  written  too  little, 
and  that  little  in  too  high  a  strain,  to  catch  the  popular  applause 
of  his  own  countrymen.* 

"  0  listen,  Man  ! 

A  voice  within  us  speaks  that  startling  word, 
Man  !  thou  shalt  never  die  !     Celestial  voices 
Hymn  it  unto  our  souls  :  according  harps 
By  angel  ringers  touched,  when  the  mild  stars 
Of  morning  sang  together,  sound  forth  still 
The  song  of  our  great  immortality  : 
Thick  clustering  orbs,  and  this  our  fair  domain, 
The  tall  dark  mountains,  and  the  deep -toned  seas, 
Join  in  this  solemn,  universal  song. 
— 0  listen,  ye,  our  spirits  !  drink  it  in 
From  all  the  air  !     JTis  in  the  gentle  moonlight ; 
'Tis  floating  midst  Day's  setting  glories ;  Night, 
Wrapt  in  her  sable  robe,  with  silent  step, 
Comes  to  our  bed,  and  breathes  it  in  our  ears : 
Night  and  the  Dawn,  bright  Day  and  thoughtful  Eve, 
All  time,  all  bounds,  the  limitless  expanse, 
As  one  vast  mystic  instrument,  are  touched 
By  an  unseen  living  Hand,  and  conscious  chords 
Quiver  with  joy  in  this  great  Jubilee. 
— The  dying  hear  it ;  and  as  sounds  of  earth 
Grow  dull  and  distant,  wake  their  passing  souls 
To  mingle  in  this  heavenly  harmony  !" 

*  Richard  H.  Dana.  He  might  take  a  rank  as  high  above  all  the  Ameri- 
can Poets,  as  Wordsworth  has  done  above  the  modern  Poets  of  Great 
Britain. 


90  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

All  my  companions  left  me  at  Meyringen,  and  I  had  a  quiet, 
lonely  Sabbath.  It  was  a  beautiful  day  for  travelling,  but  more 
lovely  still  for  resting.  Had  it  rained,  a  number  of  persons 
would  have  kept  Sabbath  at  Meyringen,  but  they  would  not  do  it, 
unless  compelled  by  bad  weather.  Now  God  had  given  us  six 
days  of  bright  elastic  air,  clear  sun,  and  cloudless  skies  to  see 
him  in  his  works ;  should  we  grudge  one  day  for  the  study  of 
his  Word,  one  day  for  prayer  ?  Should  we  travel  without  God, 
and  travel  in  spite  of  him  ?  What  a  dark  mind,  under  so  bright 
a  heaven  !  It  is  a  sad  and  sinful  example,  which  Protestant  tra- 
vellers do  set  in  Switzerland,  by  not  resting  on  the  Sabbath  day. 
Prayer  and  provender  never  hindered  a  journey.  That  is  a  good 
old  proverb ;  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  a  man  who  rides  over  the 
Sabbath,  as  well  as  through  the  week,  though  he  may  give  his 
horse  provender,  is  starving  and  hurrying  his  soul. 

Who  resteth  not  one  day  in  seven, 
That  soul  shall  never  rest  in  heaven. 

But  there  may  be  rest  without  worship,  rest  without  prayer.  The 
Sabbath  is  more  thoroughly  observed  by  Romanists,  in  their  way, 
than  it  is  by  Protestants,  in  theirs.  Without  prayer,  it  is  the 
worst  day,  spiritually,  in  all  the  seven.  He  who  gave  it  must 
give  the  heart  to  keep  it.  How  admirable  is  that  sonnet  trans- 
lated by  Wordsworth  from  Michael  Angelo.  Few  original  pieces 
of  Wordsworth  contain  so  much  real  religion  as  these  beautifully 
translated  lines. 

"  The  prayers  I  make  will  then  be  sweet  indeed, 
If  Thou  the  spirit  give,  by  which  I  pray : 
My  unassisted  heart  is  barren  clay, 
Which  of  its  native  self  can  nothing  feed : 
Of  good  and  pious  works  Thou  art  the  seed, 
Which  quickens  only  where  thou  sayst  it  may ; 
Unless  Thou  show  to  us  thine  own  true  way 
No  man  can  find  it :  Father  !  Thou  must  lead. 
Do  Thou  then  breathe  those  thoughts  into  my  mind, 
By  which  such  virtue  may  in  me  be  bred 
That  in  thy  holy  footsteps  I  may  tread  : 
The  fetters  of  my  tongue  do  Thou  unbind, 
That  I  may  have  the  power  to  sing  of  Thee, 
And  sound  Thy  praises  everlastingly." 


CHAP,  xxi.]  SABBATH  AND  PRAYER.  91 

The  nights  of  Saturday  and  Sabbath,  it  was  a  lovely  sight  to 
watch  the  rising  moon  upon  the  tops  of  the  snow  shining  moun- 
tains, at  such  an  immense  height  above  us.  We  could  not  see 
the  moon,  but  could  only  see  her  pale  light  travelling  slowly 
down,  as  a  white  soft  veil,  along  the  distant  peaks  and  ridges,  till 
at  a  late  hour  the  silver  radiance  poured  more  rapidly  over  the 
forests,  and  filled  the  Valley. 

Saturday  evening  is  distinguished  in  Scotland  and  New  Eng- 
land as  a  time  of  speciality  for  washing  children ;  in  some  parts 
of  Switzerland  it  is  a  chief  time  for  courting.  I  do  not  know 
that  here  among  the  Oberland  Alps  they  have  any  such  custom 
of  child-scrubbing ;  in  some  parts  it  might  be  questioned  if  they 
have  any  ablutions  at  all ;  but  I  am  sure  it  is  a  good  habit. 
There  was  always  a  great  moral  lesson  in  it,  besides  the  blessed- 
ness of  being  perfectly  clet  n  once  in  a  week.  It  taught  the 
children  unconsciously  that  pui.'ty  was  becoming  to  the  Sabbath ; 
there  was  a  sort  of  instinctive  feeling  induced  by  it,  of  the  ne- 
cessity of  putting  off  the  dark  soils  of  the  world  and  the  week, 
and  of  being  within  and  without  clean  and  tidy  for  the  sacred 
day.  Well  would  it  be  if  children  of  a  riper  growth  could 
wash  themselves  of  the  cares  of  the  world  and  the  deceitful- 
ness  of  riches  every  Saturday  evening,  with  as  much  ease 
and  ready  obedience  as  they  used  to  gather  up  their  playthings  and 
submit  to  the  bath  of  soap-suds ;  if  they  could  put  aside  their 
ledgers,  and  see  how  their  accounts  stand  for  eternity  on  Satur- 
day night,  they  would  have  more  leisure  for  prayer  on  the  Sab- 
bath, and  would  not  so  often  bring  their  farms,  their  cattle,  and 
their  counting-houses  into  the  House  of  God. 


92  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxn. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

From  Meyringen  to  the  Pass  of  the  Grimsel. 

AGAIN  in  the  week's  opening,  upon  our  winding,  upward  way, 
from  Meyringen  to  the  Pass  of  the  Grimsel.  What  glorious 
weather !  the  element  of  Autumnal  brightness  and  coolness  min- 
gling with  the  softness  and  warmth  of  the  Summer. 

"  The  silent  night  has  passed  into  the  prime 
Of  day — to  thoughtful  souls  a  solemn  time. 
For  man  has  wakened  from  his  nightly  death 
And  shut  up  sense,  to  morning's  life  and  breath. 
He  sees  go  out  in  heaven  the  stars  that  kept 
Their  glorious  watch,  while  he,  unconscious,  slept ; — 
Feels  God  was  round  him,  while  he  knew  it  not, — 
Is  awed — then  meets  the  world — and  God's  forgot. 
So  may  I  not  forget  thee,  holy  Power ! 
Be  to  me  ever,  as  at  this  calm  hour. 

"  The  tree  tops  now  are  glittering  in  the  sun : 
Away !  'Tis  time  my  journey  were  begun !" 

DANA. 

Forth  from  the  industrious,  thriving  village  of  Meyringen,  we 
pass  through  a  picturesque,  broken,  wooded  vale,  with  many 
romantic  side  openings,  and  then  comes  one  of  the  loveliest  sud- 
den morning  views  of  the  distant  blue  and  snowy  mountains. 
The  clouds  have  ranged  themselves  in  zigzag  fleeces,  in  a  bright 
atmosphere  of  many  shades  of  azure,  deepening  and  softening  in 
the  distance.  It  is  a  lovely  day.  Whatever  travellers  have 
been  resting  on  the  Sabbath,  that  rest  has  lost  them  nothing  of 
this  heavenly  weather,  and  it  ought  to  make  the  soul's  atmosphere 
clearer  and  brighter  for  the  whole  week.  So  may  it  be  !  So, 
when  we  meet  the  world,  may  we  not  be  "  without  God  in  the 
world."  How  beautiful  is  God's  creation  in  this  light ! 


CHAP,  xxii.]  JACOB'S  LADDER.  93 

"  And  if  there  be  whom  broken  ties 
Afflict,  or  injuries  assail, 
Yon  hazy  ridges  to  their  eyes 
Present  a  glorious  scale, 
Climbing  suffused  with  sunny  air, 
To  stop,  no  record  hath  told  where  ! 
And  tempting  fancy  to  ascend 
And  with  immortal  spirits  blend  ! 
Wings  at  my  shoulder  seem  to  play, 
But  rooted  here,  I  stand  and  gaze 
On  those  bright  steps  that  heavenward  raise 
Their  practicable  way. 

Come  forth,  ye  drooping  old  men,  look  abroad 
And  see  to  what  fair  countries  ye  are  bound  !" 

The  multiplication  of  mountain  ridges  of  cloud,  Wordsworth 
describes  as  a  sort  of  Jacob's  ladder  leading  to  heaven.  Some- 
times the  mountains  themselves  look  like  a  ladder,  up  and  down 
which  the  clouds,  like  angels,  are  flying.  Were  it  as  easy  for 
a  broken-hearted  man  to  get  to  heaven,  as  to  climb  these  moun- 
tain passes,  few  would  fail.  Afflictions  make  a  craggy  path  in 
the  pilgrimage  of  many  a  man,  who  yet,  alas,  does  not,  by  their 
means,  ascend  to  God,  nor  even  experience  the  desire  of  so 
ascending.  But  our  motto  must  be  Excelsior !  Excelsior ! 
Higher  !  Still  Higher  !  even  to  the  throne  of  God  ! 

Thither  the  wings  of  Poetry  will  not  bear  us,  nor  glorious 
sights,  nor  emblems,  nor  talk  of  angels,  nor  prosperity,  nor  ad- 
versity, nor  aught  but  Divine  Grace.  The  best  ladder  in  the 
universe  is  good  for  nothing  without,  grace,  simply  because  men 
would  not  climb  it.  It  might  be  made  with  steps  of  Jasper,  and 
set  against  the  stone  pillow  beneath  the  sleeper's  head,  and  angels 
might  stand  upon  it  and  wave  their  wings  and  beckon,  but  never 
a  step  would  man  take,  if  grace  within  did  not  move  him.  This 
thundering  river  Aar  will  split  mountains  in  its  course  down- 
war  s  rather  than  not  get  to  the  sea ;  the  very  mound  we  are 
cro  sing  is  rifted  from  top  to  bottom  to  let  it  through ;  but  you 
could  not  make  it  x  turn  backward  and  upward  to  its  source. 
Such  is  the  course  of  a  man's  heart,  so  self-willed,  so  unchange- 
able;  downwards,  away  from  God,  nothing  can  stop  it;  up- 
wards, back  to  God,  home  to  God,  nothing  can  turn  it,  but  God's 
own  grace  in  Christ. 


94  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxn. 

Petrarch  once  climbed  a  high  mountain  with  a  little  volume 
of  Augustine's  Confessions  in  his  pocket.  At  the  summit,  after 
feasting  himself  with  the  landscape,  he  opened  the  book  to  read, 
when  the  first  passage  that  caught  his  eye  was  the  following : 
"  Men  travel  far  to  climb  high  mountains,  to  observe  the  majesty 
of  the  ocean,  to  trace  the  sources  of  rivers,  but  they  neglect 
themselves."  Petrarch  closed  the  book,  and  meditated  upon  the 
lesson.  If  I  have  undergone  so  much  labor  in  climbing  this 
mountain,  said  he,  that  my  body  might  be  nearer  to  heaven,  what 
ought  I  not  to  do,  what  labor  is  too  great  to  undergo,  that  my 
soul  may  be  received  there  for  ever !  This  thought  in  the  Poet's 
mind  was  both  devout  and  poetical,  but  it  rises  in  the  depths  of 
many  a  soul,  without  being  reduced  to  practice.  So  much  easier 
is  it  to  go  on  pilgrimage  with  the  body,  than  to  climb  spiritually 
the  hill  Difficulty ;  so  much  easier  to  rise  towards  heaven  with 
the  feet,  than  to  carry  the  heart  thither. 

Why  should  a  step  of  the  soul  upward  be  more  difficult  than 
one  of  the  body  ?  It  is  because  of  the  burden  of  sin,  and  its 
downward  tendency.  Nevertheless,  there  is  this  consolation, 
that  with  every  step  of  the  soul  upward  the  fatigue  becomes  less, 
and  the  business  of  climbing  grows  from  a  labor  into  a  habit,  till 
it  seems  as  if  wings  were  playing  at  the  shoulders;  while  in 
climbing  with  the  body  there  is  no  approximation  to  a  habit,  and 
the  fatigue  is  ever  increasing.  The  nearer  the  soul  rises  to  God, 
the  more  rapid  and  easy  is  its  motion  towards  him.  How  be- 
neficent is  this  !  How  grand  and  merciful  that  "  Divine  agency," 
says  John  Foster,  "  which  apprehends  a  man,  as  apostolic  lan- 
guage expresses  it,  amidst  the  unthinking  crowd,  and  leads  him 
into  serious  reflection,  into  elevated  devotion,  into  progressive  vir- 
tue, and  finally  into  a  nobler  life  after  death." 

"  When  he  has  long  been  commanded  by  this  influence,  he 
will  be  happy  to  look  back  to  its  first  operations,  whether  they 
were  mingled  in  early  life  almost  insensibly  with  his  feelings,  or 
came  on  him  with  mighty  force  at  some  particular  time,  and  in 
connection  with  some  assignable  and  memorable  circumstance, 
which  was  apparently  the  instrumental  cause.  He  will  trace 
all  the  progress  of  this  his  better  life,  with  grateful  acknowledg- 
ment to  the  Sacred  Power,  which  has  advanced  him  to  a  deci- 


CHAP,  xxn.]  RELIGIOUS  HABIT.  95 

siveness  of  religious  habit,  that  seems  to  stamp  eternity  on  his 
character.  In  the  great  majority  of  things,  habit  is  a  greater 
plague,  than  ever  afflicted  Egypt ;  in  religious  character  it  is  a 
grand  felicity.  The  devout  man  exults  in  the  indications  of  his 
being  fixed  and  irretrievable.  He  feels  this  confirmed  habit  as 
the  grasp  of  the  hand  of  God  which  will  never  let  him  go.  From 
this  advanced  state  he  looks  with  firmness  and  joy  on  futurity, 
and  says,  I  carry  the  eternal  mark  upon  me  that  I  belong  to 
God  ;  I  am  free  of  the  universe  ;  and  I  am  ready  to  go  to  any 
world  to  which  he  shall  please  ta  transmit  me,  certain  that  every- 
where, in  height  or  depth,  he  will  acknowledge  me  for  ever." 


96  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxm. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Upper  Hasli,  and  the  river  Aar.     Falls  of  the  Aar.     Desolation  of  the  Pass. 

Now  we  overlook  the  Vale  of  the  Upper  Hasli,  with  the  Aar 
winding  through  it.  As  I  sit  upon  a  rock  by  the  way-side  and 
sketch  these  words,  the  air  is  full  of  melody,  the  birds  are  sing- 
ing thoughtfully,  the  large  grasshoppers  make  a  sonorous  merry 
chirping,  and  the  bells  of  the  goats  are  tinkling  among  the  herbage 
and  trees  on  the  sides  of  the  mountains.  The  dewy  mist  has  not 
yet  passed  from  the  grass,  but  lies  in  a  thin,  transparent  haze 
over  the  meadow.  Half  way  across  lies  the  deep  shadow  of  a 
mighty  mountain  peak,  over  which  the  sun  is  rising  ;  but  beyond 
this  shade  the  chalets  and  clumps  of  trees  are  glittering  and 
smoking  in  the  morning  sunshine.  The  mist-clouds  are  now 
lingering  only  within  the  ridges  of  the  farthest  mountains,  while 
the  whole  grand  outline  cuts  the  deep  cloudless  blue  of  heaven. 
The  shafts  of  light  shoot  down  into  the  vale,  past  the  angular 
peaks  and  defiles.  No  language  can  tell  the  beauty  of  the  view. 
I  could  sit  here  for  hours,  not  desiring  to  stir  a  step  farther.  The 
mind  and  heart  are  filled  with  its  loveliness,  and  one  cannot  help 
blessing  God  for  the  great  and  pure  enjoyment  of  beholding  it. 
If  his  grace  may  but  sanctify  it,  it  will  be  like  a  sweet  chapter 
of  his  word,  and  one  may  go  on  his  way,  refreshed  as  Pilgrim 
was,  when  he  had  gazed  over  the  distant  Celestial  glory  from  the 
Delectable  mountains. 

See  the  smoke  rising  from  the  chalets  before  you  !  The  sun- 
light is  absolutely  a  flood  of  glory  over  this  scene.  Oh  how 
lovely  !  And  still,  as  I  sit  and  write,  new  shades  of  beauty  come 
into  view.  And  now  a  few  steps  farther,  and  what  a  new  and 
perfect  picture  !  The  vale  is  almost  a  complete  circle  hemmed 
in  by  mountains,  with  the  Aar  glittering  across  it  like  a  belt  of 
liquid  silver.  And  now  we  come  down  into  the  valley.  How 


CHAP,  xxiii.]  VALE  OF  HASTI.  97 

rich  the  vegetation,  impearled  with  the  morning  dew  !  And  the 
little  village  of  Hasli-Grund  just  at  the  base  of  the  mountain,  with 
a  cloud  of  smoky  light  upon  it,  how  beautiful !  Does  it  not  seem  as 
if  here  could  be  happiness,  if  anywhere  on  earth  ?  But  happiness 
is  a  thing  within  •  you  cannot  see  it,  though  you  may  guess  at  it, 
and  say  within  yourself,  One  might  be  happy  here.  It  takes  many 
things  to  constitute  the  beautiful  appearances  that  make  a  stranger 
stop  and  exclaim,  How  lovely  !  Whereas,  it  takes  but  few  things 
to  make  up  real  happiness,  if  all  within  is  right.  A  crust  of  bread, 
a  pitcher  of  water,  a  thatched  roof,  and  love  ; — there  is  happiness 
for  you,  whether  the  day  be  rainy  or  sunny.  It  is  the  heart  that 
makes  the  home,  whether  the  eye  of  the  stranger  rest  upon  a 
potato-patch  or  a  flower-garden.  Heart  makes  home  precious, 
and  it  is  the  only  thing  that  can. 

From  this  point  the  mountain  passes  look  as  winding  up  to 
Paradise  ;  the  broken  masses  of  verdure  around  you  are  like  that 
"  verdurous  wall  "  round  Eden,  over  which  Satan  made  such  a 
pernicious  leap.  Pass  out  from  the  valley,  and  the  scene  changes 
into  one  of  savage  wildness  and  grandeur  ;  you  are  wandering 
among  rough,  broken  mountains,  with  fearful  craggy  gorges, 
through  which  the  Aar  furiously  rushes  ;  the  guide  tells  you  of 
perilous  falls  in  tempests,  and  of  deaths  by  drowning  and  by  the 
avalanche  ;  and,  to  confirm  his  words,  ridge  after  ridge  of  barren, 
savage,  scathed  peaks  present  their  bare  rock  ribs,  down  which 
are  perpetually  thundering  the  avalanches,  as  if  to  dispute  with 
the  torrent  the  right  of  roaring  through  the  valley.  Piles  of 
chaotic,  rocky  fragments,  over  which  the  path  clambers,  bespeak 
the  dates  of  desolating  storms.  Now  and  then  the  eye  and  the 
mind  are  relieved  by  the  greenness  of  a  forest  of  firs,  but  in 
general  the  pass  is  one  awful  sweep  of  desolation  and  sterile  sub- 
limity.  It  is  like  the  soul  of  a  sinner  deserted  of  God,  while  the 
thundering  torrent,  madly  plunging,  and  never  at  rest,  is  like  the 
voice  of  an  awakened  angry  conscience  in  such  a  soul. 

Amidst  this  desolate  and  savage  scenery,  after  travelling  some 
four  or  five  hours,  with  a  single  interval  of  rest  at  Guttanen,  we 
come  suddenly  upon  the  celebrated  falls  of  the  Aar.  There  is  a 
point  on  which  they  are  visible  from  the  verge  of  the  gorge  be- 
low, before  arriving  at  Handek,  but  it  is  bv  no  means  so  good  as. 
PAET  n.  8 


98  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxm. 

the  points  of  view  above.  These  points  are  very  accessible,  and 
from  a  bridge  thrown  directly  over  the  main  fall,  you  may  look 
down  into  the  abyss  where  the  cataract  crashes.  A  storm  of 
wind  and  rain  rushes  furiously  up  from  the  spray,  but  when  the 
sun  is  shining,  it  is  well  worth  a  thorough  wetting,  to  behold  the 
exquisitely  beautiful  rainbows  which  circle  the  fall  beneath.  A 
side  torrent  comes  down  from  another  ravine  on  the  right,  meet- 
ing the  Aar  fall  diagonally,  after  a  magnificent  leap  by  itself  over 
the  precipice,  so  that  the  cataract  is  two  in  one.  The  height  of 
the  fall  being  about  two  hundred  feet,  when  the  Aar  is  swollen 
by  rain,  this  must  be  by  far  the  grandest  and  most  beautiful 
cataract  in  Switzerland.  The  lonely  sublimity  of  the  scenery 
makes  the  astounding  din  and  fury  of  the  waters  doubly  impres- 
sive. 

A  short  distance  from  the  falls,  a  single  chalet,  which  itself  is 
the  inn,  constitutes  the  whole  village  of  Handek.  From  this 
place  up  to  the  Grimsel,  the  pass  increases  if  possible  in  wildness 
and  desolation.  Vegetation  almost  entirely  ceases.  The  fir,  that 
beautiful  emblem  of  the  true  Christian,  as  it  has  been  called, 
satisfied  with  so  little  of  earth,  and  rising  straight  to  heaven,  can 
no  more  find  a  footing.  Gloomy  bare  mountains,  silent  and  naked 
as  death,  frown  over  the  pathway,  and  you  seem  to  be  coming  to 
the  outermost  limits  of  creation. 

The  path  crosses  a  singular,  vast,  smooth  ledge  of  rock,  called 
the  Hollenplatte,  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  extent,  about  two 
miles  above  the  Falls,  said  to  have  been  the  bed  of  an  old  gla- 
cier, and  to  have  become  worn  smooth  and  polished  by  the  attri- 
tion of  the  ice-mountain.  The  path  is  hewn  along  the  edge  of 
the  precipice.  Your  guide-book  tells  you  that  it  is  "  prudent  to 
dismount  here,  and  cross  this  bad  bit  of  road  on  foot,  since  the 
path  runs  by  the  edge  of  the  precipice,  and  the  surface  of  the 
rock,  though  chiselled  into  grooves,  to  secure  a  footing  for  the 
horses,  is  very  slippery.  A  single  false  step  might  be  fatal  to 
man  and  beast,  precipitating  both  into  the  gulf  below  :  and  the 
slight  wooden  rail,  which  is  swept  away  almost  every  winter, 
would  afford  but  little  protection."  A  pedestrian,  having  no  care 
of  a  mule,  is  very  independent  of  all  these  dangers,  though  he 
would  not  wish  to  cross  this  place  in  a  tempest ;  but  the  guide- 


CHAP,  xxiii.]  PERPENDICULAR  HAYMAKING.  99 

book  might  have  added  the  account  of  a  traveller,  whose  mule 
slipped  and  fell  over  the  precipice,  while  he  himself  was  saved 
only  by  the  presence  of  mind  and  sudden  firm  grasp  of  his  guide, 
dragging  him  backwards,  even  while  the  mule  plunged  down  the 
abyss.  It  is  extreme  fool-hardiness  to  go  against  the  directions 
or  cautions  of  the  guide,  in  a  place  of  danger. 

By  and  by  the  path  crosses  the  Aar  and  recrosses,  and  at 
length  leaves  it  on  the  left,  to  seek  the  Hospice  of  the  Grimsel. 
Vegetation  seems  annihilated  ;  but  amidst  all  this  frightful  sterility 
you  behold  upon  a  rocky  shelf  far  up  the  side  of  an  almost  per- 
pendicular mountain,  a  man  mowing  !  My  guide  shouted,  and 
suddenly  I  heard  an  answer  and  an  echo  from  above,  and  lifting 
up  my  eyes,  there  stood  the  mower,  sharpening  his  scythe,  on  the 
brow  of  the  precipice,  looking  down  upon  us  with  great  uncon- 
cern, though  the  little  green  spot  he  was  mowing  seemed  itself  so 
steep,  that  he  was  in  the  greatest  peril  of  sliding  into  the  gulf 
below.  What  a  strange  life  many  of  these  mountaineers  do  lead, 
an  existence  more  dangerous  and  precarious  than  that  of  the  mar- 
mot and  the  chamois  ! 

"  The  Earth,"  said  Coleridge,  "  with  its  scarred  face,  is  the 
symbol  of  the  Past ;  the  Air  and  Heaven  of  Futurity."  What  a 
striking  image  is  this,  amidst  such  awful  scenery  as  our  path  has 
led  us  through  from  Hasli-Grund!  These  scarred  crags  and 
mountains,  riven  as  with  thunderbolts,  and  desolate  of  verdure, 
are  hieroglyphics  of  man's  sins.  The  whole  creation  groaneth 
and  travaileth  in  bondage.  But  this  bright  air  and  these  blue 
heavens  are  still  as  glorious  as  when  the  morning  stars  sang 
together,  and  all  the  Sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy.  Through  the 
grace  of  Christ,  though  a  man's  Past  be  like  the  scarred  black 
valley  of  the  Grimsel,  his  Futurity  may  be  like  the  Air  of 
Heaven  in  its  purity  and  radiancy  of  glory. 


100  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxiv. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Hospice  of  the  Grimsel.     Glaciers  of  the  Aar. 

THE  Hospice  of  the  Grimsel  stands  immediately  beneath  and 
amidst  these  desolate  and  barren  mountains,  about  half  an  hour 
from  the  summit  of  the  pass.  Grimly  and  fearfully  they  frown 
upon  it,  as  if  to  say,  the  nearer  Nature  gets  to  Heaven  without 
Grace,  the  more  you  see  nothing  in  her  but  craggy,  gloomy, 
overwhelming  horrors,  the  emblems  of  a  scarred  and  guilty  Past, 
more  visible  and  striking,  the  nearer  they  come  into  contrast  with 
the  pure  and  radiant  Future.  So  is  a  fallen  being,  unrenewed. 
So  it  is  with  the  inveterate  and  crabbed  repugnancies,  the  black 
and  thunder-riven  crags,  the  desolate  and  barren  peaks,  of  fallen, 
guilty,  despairing  human  nature  ;  no  where  so  awful,  as  when 
brought  nearest  to  God,  if  not  clothed  with  verdure,  and  brought 
near  to  him  in  Christ.  There  is  a  transformation  to  be  wrought, 
and  when  the  righteousness  which  Christ  imparts  is  thrown  upon 
this  same  ruined  nature,  when  his  Spirit  dwells  within  it  and 
transfigures  it,  then  Despair  departs  into  hell,  and  earth,  that 
groaned  in  bondage,  reflects  and  resembles  Heaven.  Craggy 
men  become  little  children,  and  in  the  Spirit  of  Adoption,  Abba, 
Father,  is  the  voice  that  all  the  renewed  creation  sends  up  to 
God. 

The  Hospice  is  a  rough,  strong,  rock  building,  with  a  few 
small  windows,  like  a  jail,  or  Spanish  Monastery,  or  hospital  for 
the  insane.  Altogether,  it  is  the  gloomiest,  dreariest,  most  re- 
pulsive landscape,  externally,  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  passes 
of  Switzerland.  The  peaks  of  the  mountains  rise  above  it  about 
a  thousand  feet,  it  being  itself  at  a  bleak  elevation  above  the 
sea  of  more  than  seven  thousand ; — the  rocks  around  it  might 
remind  you  of  some  of  Dante's  goblins  damned,  like  crouching 
hippopotamuses,  or  like  gigantic  demons  chained  and  weep- 


CHAP,  xxiv.]  HOSPICE  OF  THE  GRIMSEL.  101 

ing,  with  the  tears  freezing  in  their  eyelids.  There  is  a  little 
tarn,  or  black  lake,  directly  behind  the  Hospice,  which  looks  like 
Death,  black,  grim,  stagnant,  a  fit  mirror  of  the  desolation  around 
it.  No  fish  live  in  it,  but  it  is  said  to  be  never  frozen,  though 
covered  deep  with  snow  all  winter.  A  boat  like  Charon's  crosses 
it,  to  get  at  the  bit  of  green  pasture  beyond,  where  the  cows  of 
the  Hospice  may  be  fed  and  milked  for  one  or  two  months  in  the 
summer.  There  are  admirable  materials  for  goblin  tales  in  this 
Spitzbergen  landscape. 

Within  the  building,  everything  is  nice  and  comfortable;  a 
fine  little  library,  enriched,  probably  by  English  travellers,  with 
some  admirable  religious  books,  a  well  furnished  refectory  and 
abundant  table,  eighty  beds  or  more,  and  everything  in  excellent 
order.  What  a  fine  testimony  it  is,  that  the  truly  religious  books 
one  meets  with,  are  mostly  in  the  English  language.  There  are, 
indeed,  in  our  tongue,  perhaps  more  devotional  books,  more 
streams  running  from  the  Bible,  than  in  all  other  languages  put 
together.  It  was  delightful  to  meet  these  familiar  and  loved 
companions  in  this  desolate  pass  of  the  Grimsel.  We  sat  down, 
about  twenty  visitors  in  all,  to  a  plentiful  evening  meal,  with  a 
cup  of  tea,  most  refreshing  to  such  a  tired  traveller  as  I  was. 
The  number  of  visitors  daily  at  table  is  from  thirty-six  to  forty. 
A  few  days  since  one  hundred  persons  were  here  at  once,  for 
the  night,  with  half  as  many  guides  in  addition. 

I  liked  mine  host  at  the  Grimsel ;  he  seemed  to  take  a  fatherly 
interest  in  the  stranger,  and  pressed  my  hand  warmly  at  parting, 
with  many  good  wishes  for  my  pleasant  journey.  How  it  takes 
away  from  the  mercantile,  cold,  ^mercenary  character  of  an  inn, 
when  the  keeper  of  it  is  blest  with  cordial,  hospitable  manners ! 
Whether  he  have  the  heart  of  a  good  Samaritan  or  not,  if  he 
seems  to  take  an  interest  in  you,  he  gets  double  interest  from  you  ; 
it  invests  the  bought  fare  with  a  home  feeling  ;  you  pay  for  it 
ten  times  as  readily  as  you  would  to  a  grumbler,  and  you  leave 
the  house  as  that  of  a  friend. 

I  paid  a  more  hasty  visit  to  the  Aar  glacier  than  I  could  have 
wished,  for  it  would  be  worth  a  sojourn  of  two  or  three  days  to 
study  it ;  but  I  was  afraid  of  the  weather.  From  the  Grimsel 
you  may  walk  to  the  lower  glacier  in  about  three  quarters  of  an 


102  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxiv. 

hour,  and  see  at  its  very  source  the  wild  river,  up  whose  furious 
torrent  you  have  been  all  day  climbing.  The  termination  of  the 
glacier  in  the  valley  is  of  the  color  of  a  rhinoceros'  hide,  from 
the  mixture  of  rocks  and  gravel  ground  up  in  the  ice;  and 
where  the  river  runs  out  of  its  mouth,  it  may  give  you,  as  you 
stand  below  its  huge  masses,  the  idea  of  a  monstrous  elephant 
disporting  with  his  proboscis.  The  rocks  protrude  from  the  ice, 
constantly  dropping  as  fast  as  it  melts,  and  forming  chaotic 
masses  of  fragments  beneath. 

This  enormous  glacier  is  said  to  be  eighteen  miles  long,  and 
from  two  to  four  in  breadth.  The  great  peak  of  the  Finster- 
Aarhorn,  the  Aar-peak  of  Darkness,  rises  out  of  it,  probably 
the  loftiest  of  the  Oberland  Alps,  a  most  sublime  object.  This 
is  the  glacier  so  interesting  for  the  studies  and  observations  of 
Agassiz  and  Hugi,  carried  on  upon  it,  and  for  their  hotel  under 
a  huge  rock  upon  its  surface.  This  is  the  glacier  on  which  the 
hut  was  built  by  Hugi  in  1827,  to  measure  the  movement  of  the 
masses,  and  it  was  found  that  in  1836  they  had  advanced  2184  feet. 
Think  of  this  immeasurable  bed  of  ice,  near  eighty  square  miles 
in  extent,  and  how  many  hundred  feet  deep  no  man  may  know, 
moving  altogether  if  it  move  at  all,  moving  everlastingly,  with 
the  motion  of  life  amidst  the  rigidity  and  certainty  of  Death ; — 
crossed  also  by  another  glacier,  the  two  throwing  up  between 
them  a  mighty  causeway  or  running  ridge  of  mingled  ice  and 
rocks,  sometimes  eighty  feet  high !  The  Upper  and  Lower 
Glaciers  together  are  computed  to  occupy  a  space  of  near  125 
square  miles.  They  are  not  so  much  split  into  fissures  as  the 
glaciers  of  Chamouny,  and  therefore  they  are  much  more  ac- 
cessible. 

The  Hospice  of  the  Grimsel  is  tenanted  from  March  to  No- 
vember by  only  a  single  servant,  with  provisions  and  dogs.  In 
March,  1838,  this  solitary  exile  was  alarmed  by  a  mysterious 
sound  in  the  evening,  like  the  wailing  of  a  human  being  in  dis- 
tress. He  took  his  dog  and  went  forth  seeking  the  traveller, 
imagining  that  some  one  had  lost  his  way  in  the  snow.  It  was 
one  of  those  warning  voices,  supposed  by  the  Alpine  dwellers  to 
be  uttered  by  the  mountains  in  presage  of  impending  storms  or 
dread  convulsions.  It  was  heard  again  in  the  morning,  and  soon 


CHAP,  xxiv.]  ANSWERS  TO  PRAYER.  103 


afterwards  down  thundered  the  Avalanche,  overwhelming  the 
Hospice,  and  crushing  every  room  save  the  one  occupied  by  the 
servant.  With  his  dog  he  worked  his  way  through  the  snow, 
thankful  not  to  have  been  buried  alive,  and  came  in  safety  down, 
to  Meyringen. 

This  is  the  common  story.  But  I  have  met  with  more  than 
this,  in  an  interesting  little  book  of  Letters  and  travelling  sketches 
from  a  Daughter  to  her  Mother.  Miss  Lament  tells  us  that  the 
lonely  tenant  of  the  Hospice  occupied  himself  all  winter  with  his 
art  of  wood-carving,  having  no  companions  but  his  dogs,  and  was 
able,  during  the  perilous  seasons,  to  save  the  lives  of  nearly  a 
hundred  persons  every  year.  He  said  he  heard  the  supernatural 
voice  several  times  before  the  fall  of  the  avalanche.  It  was  a 
great  storm,  and  for  four  days  snowed  incessantly.  "  When  he 
first  took  out  his  dog,  it  showed  symptoms  of  fear ;  at  last  it 
would  not  go  out  at  all ;  so  when  he  had  the  third  time  heard  the 
low  voice,  which  said,  "  Go  into  the  inner  room,"  he  went  in,  and 
knelt  down  to  pray.  While  he  was  praying,  the  avalanche  fell, 
and  in  a  moment  every  place,  except  the  one  little  room  where 
he  was,  was  filled  with  snow.  He  firmly  attributed  this  excep- 
tion to  his  prayers — and  why  might  it  not  be  so  ?  Answer  not, 
ye,  who  suppose  a  world  can  only  be  governed  by  such  laws  as 
ye  can  comprehend !" 

No  !  answer  not,  except  you  have  faith  in  God,  except  you 
know,  yourself)  what  it  is  to  pray,  what  it  is  to  live  a  life  of 
prayer.  Then  answer,  and  say  that  the  Power,  which  loosened 
the  Avalanche,  and  directed  its  path,  was  the  same,  and  none 
other,  which  as  a  protecting  hand  encircled  the  place  of  prayer. 
The  Divine  Grace,  that  led  the  heart  thither,  only  preceded  the 
Divine  Power  that  summoned  the  storm.  And  what  an  infidel 
heart  must  that  be,  which,  having  experienced  such  a  protection, 
would  noJ  attribute  it  to  prayer  ! 


104  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxir. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

Lake  of  the  Dead.     Glacier  of  the  Rhone.     Pass  of  the  Furca. 

THE  night  was  cold  and  cloudless.  By  the  rising  moon,  the 
scene  of  awful  desolation  around  the  Hospice,  cold  as  it  was, 
was  covered  with  a  veil  of  loveliness.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to 
convey  an  idea  of  the  beauty  of  the  moonlight  night  in  such  a 
region.  This  morning  the  air  is  of  a  crystal  clearness,  but  a 
fathomless,  white  ocean  of  cloud  fills  the  valley  beneath  us,  while 
the  grisly  sharp  peaks  and  ridges  around  us  and  above,  rise  into 
a  bright  shining  sky. 

Close  at  the  summit  of  the  pass,  about  half  an  hour  from  the 
Hospice,  8400  feet  above  the  sea,  you  coast  the  margin  of  a  little 
dark,  still  lake,  into  which  the  bodies  of  dead  travellers,  who 
perished  by  the  way,  have  been  launched  for  burial.  It  therefore 
goes  by  the  name  of  the  Dead  Sea,  or  Lake  of  the  Dead.  These 
names  are  singularly  in  keeping  with  the  effect  of  the  scenery 
upon  the  mind,  so  wild,  so  grim,  yet  so  majestic,  so  seemingly 
upon  the  confines  of  the  supernatural  world,  where  it  seems  as  if 
imprisoned  silent  genii,  still  and  awful,  were  gazing  upon  you, 
as  if  the  eye  of  these  heaven-scaling  mountains  watched  you, 
and  would  petrify  and  fasten  you,  as  you  flit  careful  like  a 
spectre  across  the  vast  and  dream-like  landscape.  A  small 
glacier,  which  you  have  to  cross,  falls  into  this  Lake  and  feeds 
it,  and  the  peak  of  the  Seidelhorn  rises  above  it,  with  the  snowy 
Schreckhorn  towering  through  the  mountain  ridges  from  the  Aar 
glacier.  The  magnificent  white  range  of  the  Gries  glacier 
sweeps  glittering  on  the  other  side. 

A  little  distance  beyond  this  death-lake  you  come  suddenly 
upon  the  view  of  the  glacier  of  the  Rhone,  very  far  below  you, 
a  grand  and  mighty  object,  with  the  furious  Rhone  itself  issuing 
from  the  ice,  like  a  whole  menagerie  of  wild  beasts  from  their 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GLACIERS  OF  THE  RHONE.  105 

cages.  Down  it  roars,  with  the  joy  of  liberty,  swift  and  furious 
through  the  Valley,  leaping,  dashing,  thundering,  foaming.  Re- 
membering the  career  it  runs,  how  it  sometimes  floods  the  valleys 
like  a  sea,  by  how  many  rivers  it  is  joined,  and  how  it  pours 
dark  and  turbid  into  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  and  out  again  re- 
generated as  clear  as  crystal  from  Switzerland  into  France, 
and  so  into  the  Mediterranean,  it  is  interesting  to  stand  here  far 
above  its  mighty  cradle,  and  look  down  upon  its  source.  The 
glacier  is  a  stupendous  mass  of  ice-terraces  clear  across  the  Val- 
ley, propped  against  an  overhanging  mountain,  with  snowy  peaks 
towering  to  the  right  and  left.  There  is  a  most  striking  contrast 
between  the  bare  desolation  of  the  rocks  on  the  Grimsel  side,  and 
the  grassy  slopes  of  the  mountains  in  companionship  with  this 
glacier/  Your  path  coasts  along  its  margin,  amidst  a  thick 
fringe  of  bushes  and  flowers,  from  which  you  can  step  down 
upon  the  roofs  and  walls  'of  the  ice-caverns,  and  look  into  the 
azure  crevasses,  and  hear  the  fall,  the  gurgle,  and  hurrying  sub- 
glacial  rush  of  unconscious  streams  just  born  as  cold  as  death. 
Their  first  existence  is  in  a  symphony  of  dripping  music,  a  pre- 
lude to  the  babble  of  the  running  rill,  and  then,  as  they  grow 
older,  they  thunder  like  the  trumpet  of  a  cataract.  Far  above 
you,  herds  of  cattle  are  seen  browsing  on  the  steep  mountain  side, 
so  steep,  that  it  seems  as  if  they  must  hold  on  to  the  herbage  to 
keep  from  falling.  The  voices  of  the  herdsmen  echo  down  the 
Valley ;  you  half  expect  to  see  the  whole  group  slide,  like  an 
avalanche,  into  the  glacier  below. 

There  are,  more  properly  speaking,  two  glaciers  of  the  Rhone, 
for  as  you  pass  up  towards  the  Furca,  you  see  a  rapid  stream 
rushing  from  a  glacier  that  cuts  the  sky  above  you  to  the  right, 
and  pouring  cavernous  and  cataractical,  into  the  Lower  Glacier, 
from  whence  it  afterwards  issues  in  the  same  stream  which  con- 
stitutes the  Rhone.  From  the  pass  of  the  Furca,  which  costs 
you  a  hard  climb  to  surmount,  there  is  a  grand  and  varied  view 
of  the  Finsteraarhorn  and  the  Schreckhorn,  with  the  more  distant 
snowy  mountains.  From  thence  into  the  Valley  of  the  Sidli  Alp 
you  have  a  rapid  descent,  which  carries  you  over  wide  steep 
fields  of  ice  and  snow,  down  which  you  may  glide,  if  you  please, 
like  a  falling  star,  though  not  so  softly.  There  is  a  most  ex- 


106  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

citing  and  dangerous  delight  in  flying  with  your  Alpenstock  down 
such  an  abrupt  immense  declivity.  You  feel  every  moment  as 
if  you  might  plunge  headlong,  or  break  through  into  some  con- 
cealed abyss,  to  be  laid  away  in  crystal  on  the  secret  shelves  of 
the  deep  mountain  museum  ;  but  bating  that,  you  enjoy  the 
somewhat  perilous  excursion,  as  much  as  you  ever  did  when  a 
wild,  careless  boy,  plunging  into  snowbanks,  skating  with  the  ice 
bending  beneath  you,  or  sliding  fiercely  down  the  steep  hill,  and 
shouting  at  the  top  of  your  voice,  Clear  the  coast !  to  the  mani- 
fest danger  of  all  astonished  passengers.  The  path  along  the 
terra  firma  of  the  mountain  is  also  in  some  parts  hazardous, 
since  a  single  false  step,  or  a  slip  at  the  side,  might  prove  fatal. 

On  the  Furca  pass  you  are  at  the  boundary  between  the  Can- 
tons Valais  and  Uri,  and  you  have,  within  a  circle  of  little  more 
than  ten  miles  around  you,  the  sources  of  five  prominent  rivers, 
some  of  them  among  the  largest  in  Europe ;  the  Rhine,  the 
Rhone,  the  Reuss,  the  Ticino,  and  the  Aar  ;  some  tumbling  into 
the  Mediterranean,  some  into  the  German  Sea.  You  have 
passed  two  of  their  most  remarkable  feeding  glaciers,  those  of 
the  Rhone  and  the  Aar.  The  course  of  the  river  Reuss  you  are 
now  to  follow  in  the  pass  and  valley  of  the  St.  Gothard. 

Continuing  our  course  from  the  Furca,  for  a  long  distance 
there  is  no  habitation  whatever,  except  for  the  swine,  or  the  dead, 
until  you  come  down  to  the  Realp,  a  cluster  of  some  dozen 
houses,  where  the  Capuchin  friars  have  a  convent,  and  own  the 
inn.  One  of  these  men,  in  his  coarse  brown  robe,  with  a  hempen 
cord  about  it,  entered  while  I  was  taking  some  refreshment,  and 
stepped  up  to  the  barometer.  Really,  the  corded  friars  do  often 
look  as  if  they  had  been  just  cut  down  from  the  gallows,  or  were 
going  thereto.  What  a  queer  choice  of  vestments  and  symbols ! 
Jt  reminds  one  of  the  passage  concerning  "them  that  draw  ini- 
quity with  cords  of  vanity,  and  sin  as  it  were  with  a  cart-rope." 
Nevertheless,  notwithstanding  the  rope,  the  friars  may  be  very 
kind  and  hospitable  men,  when  they  have  the  means. 

Seeing  him  watch  the  glass,  I  made  to  him  the  very  original 
remark  that  the  weather  was  very  fine.  Yes,  said  he,  but  we 
shall  have  bad  weather  very  soon.  Hearing  this,  I  also  ran  to  the 
barometer,  for  the  sound  of  bad  weather  is  startling  to  a  pedes- 


CHAP,  xxv.]  ST.  GOTHARD.  107 

trian  among  the  mountains,  and  found  indeed  that  the  mercury 
was  falling.  Thereupon  I  at  once  determined  to  push  on,  if  pos- 
sible, to  the  Devil's  bridge,  that  I  might  see  at  least  the  finest  part 
of  the  St.  Gothard  pass  while  the  weather  was  clear,  since  little 
is  to  be  seen  when  it  rains  or  is  misty  on  the  mountains.  So  my 
guide  led  me  by  a  shorter  cut  across  the  rocky  pastures  on  the 
left  side  of  the  Urseren  Valley,  without  stopping  at  Hospenthal, 
that  I  might  have  ample  time  to  survey  the  pass  by  daylight. 


108  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxvi. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

The  Devil's  Bridge.     Savage  defiles  of  the  Reuss. 

THE  Valley  of  Urseren,  into  which  we  have  descended  from  the 
Furca,  is  one  of  the  highest  inhabited  vales  in  Switzerland,  4356 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  perfectly  destitute  of  trees,  yet 
covered  with  soft  green  pasturage,  and  affording  subsistence  to 
four  dairy-keeping,  cattle-rearing,  cheese-making  villages,  with 
1360  inhabitants.  The  cheese  and  red  trout  are  much  recom- 
mended by  the  guidebooks,  but  we  had  satisfied  a  traveller's  ap- 
petite at  the  inn  of  the  friars,  and  were  not  cognizant  of  the 
temptation.  The  Hospice  of  the  St.  Gothard  lies  a  couple  of 
hours  farther  up  the  pass,  from  whence  you  go  down  by  innti- 
merable  zigzags  into  sunny  Italy. 

We  made  haste  across  the  river,  and  through  the  village  of 
Andermatt,  about  a  mile  beyond  which  you  are  separated  from 
the  Devil's  Bridge  only  by  the  right  shoulder  of  an  inaccessible 
mountain.  From  the  green,  smooth,  and  open  meadows  of  An- 
dermatt, you  abruptly  enter  this  mountain,  through  the  long  gal- 
lery or  tunnel  of  Urnerloch,  hewn  in  the  solid  rock  over  the 
river  Reuss,  180  feet  in  length,  and  wide  enough  for  carriages. 
Before  this  grand  tunnel  was  bored,  the  mountain,  shutting  down 
perpendicular  into  the  roaring  river,  had  to  be  passed  by  a  rude 
suspension  gallery  of  boards  outside,  hung  down  by  chains 
amidst  the  very  spray  of  the  torrent.  It  was  a  great  exploit  to 
double  this  cape. 

You  are  not  at  all  prepared  for  the  scene  which  bursts  upon 
you  on  the  other  side,  for  you  have  been  luxuriating  in  meadows, 
and  there  is  no  sign  of  change ;  it  is  really  like  a  hurricane  in 
the  West  Indies ;  you  are  one  moment  under  a  clear  sky,  you 
see  a  black  cloud,  and  down  comes  the  fierce  tornado.  So  from 
the  green  and  quiet  slopes  of  the  sheltered  Urseren  Valley,  after 


CHAP,  xxvi.]  DEVIL'S  BRIDGE.  109 

spending  a  few  moments  in  the  darkness  of  the  Urnerloch  rock 
gallery,  you  emerge  at  once  into  a  gorge  of  utter  savageness,  di- 
rectly at  the  Devil's  Bridge,  and  in  full  view  of  some  of  the 
grandest  scenery  in  all  Switzerland.  It  bursts  upon  you,  I  say, 
like  a  tropical  storm,  with  all  the  sublimity  of  conflicting  and 
volleying  thunder-clouds.  It  is  a  most  stupendous  pass.  The 
river,  with  a  great  leap  over  its  broken  bed  of  rocks,  shoots  like 
a  catapult  into  the  chasm  against  the  base  of  the  mountain,  by 
which  it  is  suddenly  recoiled  at  right  angles,  and  plunges,  bel- 
lowing, down  the  precipitous  gorge. 

The  new  bridge  spans  the  thundering  torrent  at  a  height  of 
about  125  feet  over  the  cataract.  It  is  of  solid,  beautiful  ma- 
sonry, the  very  perfection  of  security  and  symmetry  in  modern 
art.  But  as  to  sublimity,  though  there  is  from  it  by  far  the  best 
view  of  the  Cataract  of  the  Reuss,  and  though,  being  nearer  to 
that  Cataract,  it  sets  you  more  completely  in  the  midst  of  the 
conflicting  terrors  of  the  gorge,  yet  for  itself,  as  to  sublimity  and 
daring,  it  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the  simple  rude  old  struc- 
ture, above  which  it  rises.  That  was  the  genuine  Devil's  Bridge, 
still  standing,  a  few  yards  lower  down  than  the  new,  like  an  arch 
in  the  air,  so  slight,  so  frail,  so  trembling.  It  is  much  more  in 
accordance  with  the  scenery  than  the  new,  and  is  so  covered  with 
mosses,  being  made  of  unhewn  stones,  which  centuries  have 
beaten  and  grizzled  with  tempests,  that  the  mountains  and  the 
bridge  seem  all  one,  all  in  wild  harmony  ;  whereas  the  new 
bridge  is  grossly  smooth,  elegant  and  artificial,  almost  like  a 
dandy  looking  at  the  falls  with  his  eye-glass.  The  two  bridges 
might  stand  for  personifications  of  genius  and  art ;  the  old  bridge, 
with  its  insecurity  and  daring,  is  a  manifest  work  of  Genius ; 
the  new  is  the  evident  length  to  which  Art  can  go,  after  Genius 
has  set  the  example. 

The  old  bridge,  the  genuine  Devil's  Bridge,  was  built  in  1118, 
by  the  Abbot  of  Einseideln,  perhaps  to  invite  pilgrims  from  a 
greater  distance  to  that  famous  convent.  In  comparison  with  the 
old,  it  is  like  one  of  Campbell's  thundering  war-odes,  the  battle 
of  Hohenlinden  for  example,  beside  a  tedious,  prosy,  correct  de- 
scription, or  like  Bruce's  Address  to  his  army,  or  like  the  yell  of 
an  Indian  war-whoop,  compared  with  the  written  speeches  of 


110.  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP,  xxvi. 

commanders  in  Sallust.  The  upper  bridge  spans  the  cataractical 
performance  of  the  Reuss  at  an  angle  in  the  mountain,  where 
naturally  there  is  not  one  inch  of  space  for  the  sole  of  the  foot, 
but  a  perpendicular  cliff,  against  which  the  torrent  rages,  and  in 
which  the  only  way  of  blasting  the  rock,  and  scooping  out  a 
shelf  or  gallery  for  the  passage  on  the  other  side,  was  by  lower- 
ing down  the  workmen  with  ropes  from  the  brow  of  the  mountain, 
where,  hanging  over  the  boiling  gulf,  they  bored  the  granite,  and 
fixed  their  trains  of  powder. 

The  old  bridge  was  only  one  arch  thrown  across  the  gorge,  and 
but  just  broad  enough  to  admit  of  two  persons  passing  each  other 
in  safety,  with  scarcely  any  protection  at  the  sides,  and  at  a 
height  of  about  a  hundred  feet  above  the  torrent.  It  was  a  dizzy 
thing  to  pass  it,  and  for  persons  of  weak  nerves  dangerous,  and 
to  get  upon  it  you  coasted  the  gulf  of  zigzag  terraces.  The  new 
bridge  is  of  two  arches,  with  safe  and  strong  parapets,  and  of 
ample  width  for  carriages.  Till  the  first  bridge  was  made  there 
was  no  passing  this  terrific  chasm,  no  communication  possible 
from  one  side  to  the  other. 

Who  could  have  supposed  that  into  this  savage  den,  amidst  its 
roar  of  waters,  so  distant  from  the  world,  so  unsuitable  for  a  bat- 
tle field,  there  could  have  been  poured  the  conflicting  tides  of  the 
French  Revolution,  in  a  condensed  murderous  strife  between  two 
armies  !  Twice  in  the  space  of  a  little  more  than  a  month  was 
the  war  campaign  of  1799  driven  through  this  pass  by  the 
French,  Russians,  and  Austrians,  conquering  alternately.  First 
in  August  the  French  charged  the  Austrians,  and  driving  them 
across  the  Devil's  Bridge,  rushed  pell  mell  after  them,  when  the 
arch  fell  midway  and  precipitated  the  wedged  masses  of  the 
soldiery  into  the  boiling  torrent.  Then  in  September,  that  great 
war- wolf  Suwarrow  poured  down  with  his  starved  Russians  from 
the  top  of  the  St.  Gothard.  They  devoured  the  soap  in  the  vil- 
lage of  Andermatt,  and  boiled  and  ate  the  tanned  leather  and  raw 
hides,  and  in  the  strength  of  these  aliments,  drove  the  French 
across  the  Devil's  Bridge,  and  rushed  themselves  to  the  passage. 
The  French  in  their  retreat  broke  down  the  bridge  by  blasting 
the  arch,  but  this  put  no  stop  to  the  impetuous  fury  of  the  Rus- 
sians, who  crossed  the  chasm  on  beams  of  wood  tied  together 


CHAP,  xxvi.]  WAR  AND  WISDOM.  Ill 

with  the  officers'  scarfs,  and  in  their  rage  to  come  at  their  ene- 
mies plunged  hundreds  of  the  foremost  ranks  of  their  own 
columns  into  the  foaming  cataract.  It  was  more  fearful  meet- 
ing the  fury  of  their  enemies  in  this  conflict,  than  having  their 
path  over  the  mountains  swept  by  the  dread  avalanches.  The 
war  of  human  beings  was  worse  than  that  of  nature,  though 
they  had  to  encounter  both.  They  dared  the  fight  of  the  ava- 
lanches, that  they  might  fight  with  each  other.  Such  is  human 
passion,  such  is  war ! 

Yet  the  world  has  deified  its  warriors,  and  starved  its  benefac- 
tors and  poets.  What  sort  of  proportion  is  there  between  the 
benefit  conferred  upon  the  English  nation  by  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough  in  the  victory  of  Blenheim,  and  that  bestowed  upon  Eng- 
land and  the  world  by  John  Milton  in  the  gift  of  Paradise  Lost  ? 
None  at  all.  The  work  done  by  the  Poet  is  so  infinitely  superior 
to  that  accomplished  by  the  Warrior,  that  you  can  scarcely  insti- 
tute a  comparison. 

And  yet  the  Parliament  and  Queen  of  Great  Britain  bestowed 
upon  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  after  the  battle  of  Blenheim  a 
royal  domain  with  royal  revenues,  besides  devoting  five  hundred 
thousand  pounds  sterling  to  build  a  palace  fit  for  so  great  a  war- 
rior to  live  in  ;  while  John  Milton  was  obliged  to  sell  the  copy- 
right of  his  great  poem  for  ten  pounds,  and  died  comparatively 
unknown  and  poor !  In  England,  by  that  great  poem,  thousands 
of  people  have  been  literally  gaining  their  subsistence,  and  mak- 
ing their  fortunes,  to  say  nothing  of  the  tens  of  thousands,  whose 
minds  have  been  invigorated  and  enlarged  by  feeding  on  it,  while 
by  the  great  victory,  and  the  magnificent  reward  of  it,  revenues 
that  might  have  supported  thousands  have  been  devoted  exclu- 
sively to  the  luxury  and  splendor  of  a  single  family  !  So  went 
the  war- worshipping  era  of  our  world.  At  present  it  may  be 
hoped,  if  poetry  is  not  rising,  war  at  least  is  at  a  discount. 


112  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxvn. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Legends  of  the  pass.     Cowper's  Memoria  Technica. 

AFTER  the  gorge  of  the  Devil's  Bridge,  you  plunge  down  the 
precipitous  valley,  by  well  constructed  zigzags,  crossing  and  re- 
crossing  the  Reuss  repeatedly,  till  you  come  to  the  savage  defile 
of  Schellinen,  where  for  several  miles  the  ravine  is  so  deep  and 
narrow,  that  the  cliffs  seem  to  arch  the  heavens,  and  shut  out  the 
light.  The  Reuss  meanwhile  keeps  such  a  roaring  din,  making 
in  the  short  space  of  four  leagues  a  fall  of  2500  feet,  almost  in 
a  perpetual  cataract,  that  the  people  have  called  this  part  of  the 
way  the  Krachenthal,  or  crashing  valley.  The  noise  and  the 
accompaniments  are  savage  enough.  The  mountains  seem  ready 
to  tumble  into  the  bed  of  the  river.  "  We  tremble,"  said  my 
companion  under  the  influence  of  the  scenery  of  the  Gemmi, 
"  lest  the  mountains  should  crush  us ;  what  must  be  that  state  of 
despair  in  men's  hearts,  which  can  call  on  the  mountains  to  fall 
on  them  and  bury  them,  rather  than  meet  the  face  of  God  ?" 

There  are  curious  legends  in  this  part  of  the  valley.  Enor- 
mous fragments  of  rock  are  strewn  around,  as  if  they  might  have 
fallen  here  from  the  conflict  of  Titans,  or  angels,  when  they 
plucked  the  seated  hills  with  all  their  load  to  throw  at  each  other. 
One  of  them,  almost  a  mountain  by  itself,  nearly  in  the  road, 
goes  by  the  name  of  Teufelstein,  or  Devil's  Stone,  having  been 
dropped,  it  is  said,  by  the  overworked  demon,  in  attempting  to  get 
it  across  the  St.  Gothard  pass.  The  legend  runs  that  he  set  out 
to  convey  this  crag  across  the  valley  for  a  wager,  but  let  it  slip, 
and  lost  the  game.  The  manner  in  which  the  traveller  gazes 
upon  this  rock,  in  consequence  even  of  this  foolish  legend,  the 
peculiar  interest  he  feels  in  it,  is  a  curious  example  of  the  power 
of  imaginative  association,  the  craving  of  the  mind  for  some  in- 
telligent moral  or  meaning.  In  all  things  possible  you  must  have 


CHAP,  xxvii.]  THE  TEUFELSTEIN.  113 

a  human  or  a  supernatural  interest.  The  principle  is  universal. 
A  child  in  the  nursery  would  not  be  half  so  much  interested  by 
a  simple  engraving  of  a  house,  ever  so  well  done,  with  merely 
the  announcement,  This  is  a  house,  as  when  you  come  to  say, 
This  is  the  house  that  Jack  built  ;  then  what  an  interest !  Then 
how  the  imagination  peoples  it !  There  is  Jack,  the  malt,  the 
cat,  the  rat,  the  priest,  the  milk-maid,  and  this  is  the  cosy  house, 
where  all  the  wonders  of  the  linked  story  had  their  existence. 
What  a  place  of  interest !  Just  so  with  the  Devil's  Crag. 
Ridiculous  as  the  legend  is,  no  man  can  pass  that  stone,  without 
being  interested  in  it,  and  perhaps  seeing  his  disappointed  Infer- 
nal Majesty  in  idea,  with  sail  broad  vans  in  the  air  above  him, 
sweating  like  a  day  laborer,  and  ineffectually  struggling  to  float 
beneath  the  weight.  The  common  legends  concerning  the  Devil 
do  almost  always  represent  him  as  outwitted,  foiled,  and  cheated, 
instead  of  being  successful  in  his  villainy  ; — it  is  a  good  sign 
and  prediction,  for  he  must  go  down. 

At  Wasen  I  found  a  comfortable,  excellent  inn,  a  good,  cheer- 
ful happy  family,  and  a  kind,  hospitable  host.  They  seemed 
well  to  do  in  the  world,  and  were  Romanists,  as  are  most  of  the 
people  of  the  Canton  Uri.  I  went  to  bed  thinking  of  the  Capu- 
chin's promise  of  bad  weather,  and  glad  that  I  had  seen  the  St. 
Gothard  pass  in  bright  day.  In  the  morning  the  Friar's  predic- 
tion was  still  unaccomplished.  Again  the  morning  was  fair,  though 
the  clouds  were  clinging  to  the  mountains  up  and  down  the  val- 
ley, sometimes  in  long  ridges,  sometimes  in  thick  fleecy  volumes, 
now  surrounding  the  base  half  way  down,  now  revealing  only 
the  lofty  peaks,  and  now  swept  from  the  whole  face  of  the  gorge, 
and  admitting  the  bright' sun  to  fill  it.  At  this  moment,  on  the 
edge  of  the  mountain  top  beside  us,  so  lofty  and  perpendicular 
that  it  seems  ready  to  fall,  the  sun  is  struggling  with  the  fleecy 
masses  of  cloud  glowing  like  silver,  and  the  trees  upon  the  verge 
of  the  cliff  seem  on  fire  as  in  a  burning  focus,  while  all  around 
is  grey  mist. 

We  are  now  coming  into  a  region  trodden  of  old  by  great  pa- 
triots, and  consecrated  at  this  day,  to  liberty,  in  history.  We 
are  getting  upon  the  borders  of  the  country  of  William  Tell ; 
we  must  not  look  at  the  scenery  alone,  for  grand  as  it  is,  the 
PART  n.  9 


114  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxvn. 

great  thoughts  and  struggles  of  freedom  are  grander.  In  truth, 
a  man  ought  not  to  travel  through  such  a  region  without  a  fresh 
memory  of  connected  localities  and  incidents.  How  much  a 
man  needs  to  know,  to  make  a  good  traveller  !  Or  rather,  how 
much  he  needs  to  remember,  and  how  vividly !  The  Poet  Cow- 
per,  in  one  of  his  beautiful  letters,  recommends  pedestrianizing  as 
good  for  the  memory.  "  I  have,"  says  he,  "  though  not  a  good 
memory  in  general,  yet  a  good  local  memory,  and  can  recollect, 
by  the  help  of  a  tree,  or  a  stile,  what  you  said  on  that  particular 
spot.  For  this  reason  I  purpose,  when  the  summer  is  come,  to 
walk  with  a  book  in  my  pocket ;  what  I  read  at  my  fire-side,  I 
forget,  but  what  I  read  under  a  hedge,  or  at  the  side  of  a  pond, 
that  pond  and  that  hedge  will  always  bring  to  my  remembrance." 

But  suppose  the  gentle  Poet  wishes  to  recall  the  passages  in 
some  other  part  of  the  country.  It  would  certainly  be  somewhat 
clumsy  to  have  to  carry  about  with  you  a  pond  or  a  hedge  as  a 
memoria  technica ;  it  would  be  less  inconvenient  to  carry  your 
whole  library.  And  besides,  what  art  shall  there  be  to  quicken 
the  memory  in  knowledges  already  forgotten  ?  The  memory  is 
a  most  perverse  faculty ;  it  treasures  up  things  we  could  wish  to 
forget,  and  forgets  things  we  could  wish  to  retain ;  but  there  is 
one  chain,  that  no  man  can  escape,  except  he  goes  to  Jesus 
Christ,  and  that  is,  the  memory  of  his  own  sins.  To  many  a 
man,  to  all  men  "  in  their  sins,"  the  art  of  forgetting,  could  it 
but  last  for  ever,  would  be  the  greatest  of  all  blessings. 

What  an  affecting  page  in  the  history  of  an  individual  mind 
is  presented  in  those  melancholy  remorseful  stanzas,  said  to  have 
been  written  in  a  blank  leaf  of  the  Pleasures  of  Memory.  They 
trace  the  human  being ;  they  present  a  more  universal  experience 
of  our  fallen  nature  by  far,  than  the  more  agreeable,  but  more 
superficial  recollections  of  childhood  and  of  later  days.  They 
are  as  a  fossil  leaf,  in  which  you  observe  the  fibres,  that  charac- 
terized a  whole  living  family  of  the  vegetable  creation.  So  do 
these  stanzas  read  the  experience  of  our  species,  not  indeed, 
always  so  clearly  acknowledged,  even  to  one's  own  conscious- 
ness, but  always  existing,  though  sometimes  like  sympathetic  let- 
ters, to  be  only  revealed  when  brought  to  the  fire. 


CHAP,  xxvii.]      -  PENAL  POWER  OF  MEMORY.  115 

"  Pleasures  of  memory  !  O  supremely  blest, 
And  justly  proud  beyond  a  poet's  praise, 
If  the  pure  confines  of  thy  tranquil  breast 
Contain  indeed  the  subject  of  thy  lays  ! 
By  me  how  envied,  for  to  me, 
The  herald  still  of  misery, 
Memory  makes  her  influence  known 
By  sighs  and  tears  and  grief  alone. 
I  greet  her  as  the  fiend,  to  whom  belong 
The  vulture's  ravening  beak,  the  raven's  funeral  song. 
Alone,  at  midnight's  haunted  hour, 

When  nature  woos  repose  in  vain, 
Remembrance  wakes  her  penal  power, 

The  tyrant  of  the  burning  brain. 
She  tells  of  time  misspent,  of  comfort  lost, 

Of  fair  occasions  gone  for  ever  by, 
Of  hopes  too  fondly  nursed,  too  rudely  crost, 
Of  many  a  cause  to  wish,  yet  fear,  to  die. 
For  what,  except  the  instinctive  fear 
Lest  she  survive,  detains  me  here, 
When  all  the  life  of  life  is  fled  ? 
What  but  the  deep  inherent  dread, 
Lest  she  beyond  the  grave  resume  her  reign, 
And  realize  the  hell,  that  priests  and  beldams  feign." 

How  painfully  impressive  is  this !  The  penal  power  of  re- 
membrance is  a  terrible  reality.  It  has  driven  many  a  mind  to 
thoughts  of  suicide.  But  why  think  of  suicide  to  escape  from 
memory,  when  the  penal  power  of  memory  is  only  a  prophecy 
of  the  future  ?  It  is  to  be  earnestly  hoped  that  the  self  tortured 
unknown  individual,  who  traced  from  bitter  unavailing  experience 
the  gloomy  lines  just  quoted,  may  have  sought  and  found  in 
Christ  that  deliverance  from  the  death  of  sin  and  the  fear  of 
death,  with  which,  only  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away  the 
sin  of  the  world,  can  bless  the  soul. 


116  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.          [CHAP,  xxvin. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Associations.     Canton  Uri,  and  the  memories  of  Tell. 

How  infinite  are  the  moral  and  spiritual  relations  even  of  mate- 
rial things  !  Indeed,  what  subject  is  there,  says  Edmund  Burke, 
that  does  not  branch  into  infinity  ?  A  world  that  has  been  the 
habitation  of  intelligent  creatures,  becomes  connected  in  every 
part  with  the  story  and  the  influences  of  their  existence.  Nature 
herself  sympathizes  with  them,  is  invested  with  the  significance 
of  their  immortality,  travaileth  in  bondage  beneath  their  sins  and 
burdens,  and  acquires  the  language  both  of  their  history  and 
destiny.  Point  after  point,  feature  after  feature,  landscape  after 
landscape,  the  whole  world  of  land,  and  every  rood  of  sea,  may 
become,  in  the  course  of  ages,  •indissolubly  linked  with  some  great 
transaction,  and  with  a  crowd  of  the  soul's  experiences,  in  such 
wise,  that  ever,  as  long  as  the  globe  lasts,  it  shall  be,  as  it  were, 
an  organ,  the  keys  of  which  are  always  sounding  their  intelli- 
gent notes  of  guilty  and  sad,  or  innocent  and  joyous  meaning. 
All  thought  is  eternal,  and  if  the  soul  have  forgotten  it,  material 
nature  will  sometimes  bring  it  up.  The  wicked  may  be  silent 
in  the  grave,  but  the  grave  shall  not  be  silent  in  regard  to  the 
wicked.  The  actors  of  a  life  of  heroism  and  goodness  pass 
away,  but  the  earth  always  speaks  of  them. 

Such  is  the  eternal,  indestructible  power  of  association.  Fear- 
fully and  wonderfully  are  we  made,  and  strangely  linked  with 
the  world  that  we  inhabit.  So,  according  to  the  multitude  and 
nobleness  of  a  man's  associations,  especially  of  a  moral  charac- 
ter, will  be  the  depth  and  thoughtfulness  of  his  delight  in  looking 
upon  nature.  There  is  a  scenery  in  the  mind,  connected  with 
that  in  nature,  and  appropriate  to  it,  somewhat  as  the  other  parts 
of  a  piece  of  music  are  connected  with  the  air,  and  dependent 
upon  it.  A  man  might  be  able  to  whistle  the  air  alone,  and 
might  have  enjoyment  in  singing  it,  but  if  he  is  ignorant  of  the 


CHAP,  xxviii.]  HISTORICAL  TRAVEL.  117 

other  parts,  his  pleasure  cannot  equal  that  of  a  musical  mind,  in 
which  all  the  parts  come  linked  together  in  one  full  and  perfect 
harmony. 

A  traveller  should  be  prepared  to  read  the  book  of  nature  with 
the  historical  harmony.  An  ignorant  or  forgetful  man  sees 
nothing  but  the  scene  before  him,  when  the  historical  student  sees 
it  peopled  with  great  forms,  sees  it  in  grand  moral  lights  and 
shades,  surrounded  by  the  many-colored  atmosphere  of  the  past, 
as  well  as  the  light  of  the  day's  sun  that  is  shining  upon  it. 
When  a  man  visits  Altorf,  he  needs  to  be  for  the  time  thrown 
back  into  the  past ;  but  this  is  impossible,  unless  the  past  is  in 
him  as  the  fruit  of  his  studies,  taken  into  his  being.  The  guide 
books  will  repeat  to  him  the  name  of  Tell  and  the  facts  in  his 
history  ;  the  inscriptioa  will  inform  him  that  such  and  such  great 
events  took  place  amidst  the  scenes  he  is  visiting ;  but  this  does 
not  give  him  the  past,  does  not  make  up  that  inward  .scenery 
with  which  his  mind  has  need  to  have  been  familiar,  in  order 
that  the  place  may  call  heroic  times  and  interests  into  being. 
How  much  greater  is  the  enjoyment  of  a  mind  that  has  the  whole 
of  such  a  drama  as  Schiller's  William  Tell  fresh  in  memory, 
wrhile  wandering  over  the  Canton  Uri,  than  his  that  has  but  a  few 
dry  dates  and  names,  or  worse  than  all  is  dependent  on  the  monu- 
ments, the  guides,  and  the  Handbooks  ! 

A  man  visits  Zurich ;  he  goes  into  the  Cathedral ;  what  a  loss 
to  him,  if  for  the  first  time  he  learns  that  Zwingle  there  preached, 
or  knows  nothing  about  the  history  of  Zwingle,  and  the  scenes 
of  the  reformation !  He  visits  Einseidlen  ;  seeks  the  shrine  of 
the  Virgin,  sees  the  monks  at  worship  ;  what  a  loss  to  him,  if  his 
studies  in  history  have  failed  to  people  the  scene  to  his  own  mind 
from  the  great  life  that  for  a  time  was  there  passing !  A  man 
crosses  the  Wengern  Alp.  If  he  has  never  read  the  tragedy  of 
Manfred,  there  is  a  grand  scenery  created  from  the  poet's  mind, 
in  respect  of  which  he  crosses  before  the  Jungfrau  with  his  eyes 
shut.  A  man  passes  into  Athens  and  stands  on  the  Acropolis. 
What  a  loss  to  him,  if  his  studies  have  never  made  him  familiar 
with  the  age  of  Pericles  !  Nay,  there  is  a  recollection  of  objects 
around  him,  that  have  absolutely  no  meaning,  no  story,  no  lesson, 
no  language  to  his  mind,  if  many  a  page  of  Grecian  history  be 


118  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxvm. 

not  in  his  remembrance.  A  man  wanders  into  Egypt,  up  and 
down  the  Nile,  into  old  majestic  Thebes,  with  its  dim  colossal 
ruins.  What  an  inappreciable,  irretrievable  loss  to  him,  if  he 
never  read  Herodotus,  or  is  destitute  of  a  knowledge  of  the  com- 
bined prophetic  and  actual  history  of  that  antique  marvellous 
country,  with  its  gigantic,  monstrous  types  of  thought  and  being ! 

"  Labor  to  distil  and  unite  into  thyself/'  says  ancient  Fuller, 
"  the  scattered  perfections  of  several  nations.  Many  weed 
foreign  countries,  bringing  home  Dutch  drunkenness,  Spanish 
pride,  French  wantonness,  and  Italian  Atheism ;  as  for  the  good 
herbs,  Dutch  industry,  Spanish  loyalty,  French  courtesy,  and 
Italian  frugality,  these  they  leave  behind  them  ;  others  bring 
home  just  nothing  ;  and  because  they  singled  not  themselves 
from  their  countrymen,  though  some  years  beyond  sea,  were 
never  out  of  England."  This  is  the  great  folly  of  travelling 
withou^ 'a  foreign  language,  that  it  compels  a  stranger  to  keep 
company  only  with  his  own  countrymen,  so  that  he  returns  home 
with  all  his  prejudices. 

We  are  still  in  the  magnificent  pass  of  the  St.  Gothard,  and  it 
continues  to  present  a  character  at  once  picturesque  and  beauti- 
ful, wild  and  savage.  The  gorges  are  tremendous,  the  bridges 
thrown  across  the  torrent  frequent  and  bold.  Here  and  there, 
dark  forests  of  fir  cling  to  the  mountains,  and  sometimes  you  see 
the  savage  jagged  paths  of  recent  avalanches.  Now  and  then, 
there  is  a  little  chapel  on  the  mountain's  brow ;  the  evening 
chime  of  bells  comes  ringing  up  the  valley ;  you  meet  corded 
brown  friars  walking  and  women  working  on  the  roads.  The 
sun  is  pouring  through  rifts  in  the  clouds,  and  the  dark  blue  sky 
opens. 

I  cannot  help  noting  the  variety  and  contrast  of  colors  offered 
to  the  eye  in  such  a  scene ;  the  azure  of  the  sky,  the  violet  moun- 
tains, of  a  hue  as  deep  as  the  heart's  ease,  the  grisly  grey  rocks, 
the  black  firs,  the  deep  blue  gorges,  the  pale  verdure  of  the  trees, 
the  deeper  delicious  green  of  the  grassy  slopes  and  meadow 
patches,  the  white  virgin  snow,  the  dim  mists,  the  silvery  clouds, 
the  opal  of  the  morn,  the  golden  lights  of  evening.  What  an  in- 
termingling of  lovely  hues  and  shades !  At  some  distance  below 
Wasen  the  mountains  are  singularly  grand.  Far  down  the 


CHAP,  xxvm.]  TELL'S  BIRTHPLACE.  119 

Valley,  a  pyramidal  peak  of  bare  granite  guards  the  way  to  the 
heroic  region,  and  now  the  green  and  flowery  mottled  slopes,  with 
the  thick  luxuriant  foliage  and  fruits  of  the  walnut,  chestnut, 
pear,  and  other  trees,  begin  to  spread  out  more  largely.  Here 
is  a  sweet  picturesque  spot,  wildly  beautiful.  The  smell  of  the 
new  made  hay,  as  it  lies  upon  the  green  sward,  is  full  of  fra- 
grance. Here  and  there  it  is  gathered  into  small  grotesque 
stacks,  to  be  carried  on  the  shoulders.  I  have  seen  women,  with 
their  heads  and  shoulders  buried  beneath  enormous  bundles  of 
this  short  grass,  laboring  along  the  path  at  the  brink  of  precipices, 
where  a  single  step  would  plunge  bundle  and  carrier  into  the 
gulf  below.  Now  and  then  comes  to  the  ear  the  pleasant  music 
of  the  mower  whetting  his  scythe. 

The  Valley  opens  out  immediately  at  Amsteg,  where  the 
ascent  towards  Andermatt,  in  the  direction  you  have  passed,  com- 
mences. From  this  to  Altorf  the  way  winds  luxuriant  through 
a  well  wooded  and  cultivated  region.  You  visit  the  village  of 
Burglen,  where  William  Tell  was  born.  It  is  a  beautiful  rural 
hamlet,  of  most  magnificent  verdure,  higher  up  among  the  moun- 
tains than  Altorf,  and  commanding  a  rich  leafy  view  of  the  Val- 
ley below.  The  church  is  in  front,  and  in  sight  is  the  village 
of  Attighausen,  where  Walter  Furst  was  born.  A  little  chapel 
stands  on  the  spot  formerly  occupied  by  TelPs  house.  Why 
could  they  not  have  let  the  house  remain  as  it  was,  and  put  the 
chapel  in  the  churchyard  ?  It  is  covered  with  very  rude  paint- 
ings, descriptive  of  various  scenes  in  TelPs  life,  accompanied 
with  sentences  from  Scripture.  On  the  front  of  the  chapel  is  the 
text,  "  We  are  called  unto  liberty — but  by  love  serve  one 
another."  How  admirable  and  appropriate  !  Called  unto  liberty, 
to  serve  in  love  !  A  blessed  world  this  will  be,  when  all  tyranny 
and  oppression  end  in  that.  A  blessed  inheritance  it  is,  when 
the  Patriot  leaves  that  to  his  countrymen. 


120  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.          [CHAP.  xxix. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Traditions  of  Freedom.     Religious  liberty  the  garrison  of  civil. 

LESS  than  half  an  hour's  walk  now  brings  you  to  Altorf,  name 
so  sacred  in  Swiss  story,  where  you  pass  through  the  very  square 
in  which  the  heroic  father  shot  the  apple  from  his  child's  head. 
There  the  figures  stand,  above  the  fountain  ;  the  rudest  carica- 
ture of  statuary  could  not  deprive  them  of  interest.  And  there 
is  the  old  tower,  said  to  stand  where  the  linden  tree  grew,  to 
which  the  noble  boy  was  bound  by  the  tyrant  Gessler,  as  the 
mark  for  the  father's  archery.  The  Child  was  father  of  the 
Man,  for  had  he  not  stood  steadfast  and  smiling,  the  father's  heart 
had  faltered.  You  must  have  your  own  boyish  enthusiasm  fresh 
about  you,  with  which  you  used  to  read  the  story  at  school,  if 
you  would  visit  these  spots  now  with  proper  feelings,  or  with  en- 
joyment like  that  which  the  story  itself  once  gave  you. 

And  what  an  admirable  tale  !  In  all  the  romantic  or  heroic 
eras  of  nations  there  never  were  finer  materials  of  poetry.  What 
a  pity  there  could  not  have  been  some  Homer  to  take  them  up, 
to  give  them  the  charmed  shape  and  being  of  truth  wrought  by 
the  imagination  into  epic  song !  Schiller  has  done  much  in  his 
masterly  drama,  but  the  subject  is  that  almost  of  an  historical 
epic.  Schiller  was  eminently  successful  in  the  delineation  of 
the  child,  as  well  as  the  patriot.  Happy  is  the  country,  that  has 
such  memories  to  cherish  as  those  of  Wallace,  Leonidas,  and 
Tell,  and  is  still  worthy  of  them  !  Unhappy  and  degraded  is  the 
land,  from  which,  though  the  letter  of  such  memories  may  re- 
main, the  soul  of  them  in  the  people  hath  departed  !  It  is  sad  to 
say  of  a  country,  It  has  been  free.  It  is  sad  to  say  of  a  country, 
as  of  an  individual,  that 

"  The  wiser  mind 

Mourns  less  for  what  age  takes  away, 
Than  what  it  leaves  behind." 


CHAP,  xix.]  CRITICAL  INFIDELITY.  121 

The  critics  are  trying  to  mystify  the  historical  grandeur  of 
Switzerland,  casting  the  blur  of  doubt  and  scepticism  over  its 
heroic  traditions,  questioning  whether  Tell  and  the  Apple  ever 
existed.  A  country  of  critical  unbelievers  that  could  produce  a 
Strauss,  to  turn  Christ  and  the  Apostles  into  a  myth-mist,  will  dis- 
pose easily  of  all  less  sacred  story.  There  is  no  feat,  which  such 
infidelity  cannot  perform  ;  it  would  put  a  lie  into  the  lips  of  na- 
ture herself.  Ruthless  work  it  makes  when  it  turns  the  plough- 
share  of  ruin  through  loved  and  hallowed  associations.  But  true 
patriotism  and  poetry,  as  well  as  Divine  Truth,  are  too  much  for 
it ;  it  can  no  more  strike  the  memories  of  Tell  from  the  mind  of 
Switzerland,  than  it  could  abolish  the  earth's  strata,  or  annihilate 
her  veins  of  gold  and  diamond.  Ever  will  these  heroic  traditions 
remain,  ever  in  the  faith  of  the  Swiss  hearts,  ever  in  the  glens  of 
the  mountains,  ever  in  the  books  and  ballads  of  the  cottages,  as 
indestructible  as  the  Alps,  as  far  kenned  and  brightly  shining  as 
the  light  of  those  flowers  that  poets  tell  of : — 

"  Of  flowers,  that  with  one  scarlet  gleam 
Cover  a  hundred  leagues,  and  seem 
To  set  the  hills  on  fire." 

Even  so  beautiful,  so  far  seen,  so  inspiring,  like  beacons  on  the 
mountain  tops,  are  these  historical  traditions.  What  wickedness 
it  would  be  to  sweep  them  from  the  soul  of  the  country  !  On  a 
clear  moonlight  night,  it  is  said  you  can  even  now  sometimes  see 
the  stalwart  form  of  Tell  in  his  native  valley  bending  his  great 
cross-bow  and  trying  the  strength  of  his  arrows.  It  would  re- 
quire no  great  power  of  Imagination  to  see  beneath  the  moon  on 
the  meadow  of  Grutli  the  immortal  group  of  three,  Tell,  Furst, 
and  Melcthal,  with  solemn  faces  and  hands  uplift  to  heaven,  tak- 
ing that  great  oath  of  Liberty,  which  was  the  testament  oY  free- 
dom  to  their  country. 

All  things  considered,  it  is  well  and  noble  that  the  public 
authorities  in  Uri  should  have  ordered  to  be  burned  a  book  by 
the  son  of  the  celebrated  Haller,  criticising  the  story  of  Tell  so 
as  to  injure  the  popular  version.  Let  the  rulers  and  the  people 
but  keep  the  right  spirit  of  the  tradition  which  they  guard  with 
such  jealousy,  and  let  them  unite  the  freedom  of  the  State  and 


122  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.          [CHAP.  xxix. 

of  the  personal  franchise  on  their  mountains  with  the  spirit  of 
piety,  with  freedom  to  worship  God  according  to  conscience,  and 
they  will  show  themselves  worthy  of  the  inheritance  which  old 
patriots  transmitted  to  them.  How  true,  how  precious,  how 
noble,  is  that  sonnet  of  Wordsworth  on  the  obligations  of  Civil  to 
Religious  Liberty,  in  which  he  apostrophizes  his  native  land  for 
the  dear  memory  of  her  sons,  who  for  her  civil  rights  have  bled, 
and  then  passes  to  the  great  truth  that  all  uselessly  would  these 
great  souls  have  fallen  in  the  conflict,  if  it  had  not  been  after- 
wards sustained  and  carried  onward  by  religious  principle  ;  if 
the  freedom  fought  for  on  earth  had  not  been  lighted  from  other 
worlds  and  linked  with  heaven.  So  must  claims  from  other 
worlds  inspirit  the  Star  of  Liberty  in  Switzerland,  or  not  long 
will  it  remain  above  the  horizon. 

"  How  like  a  Roman  Sydney  bowed  his  head. 
And  Russel's  milder  blood  the  scaffold  wet! 
But  these  had  fallen  for  profitless  regret, 
Had  not  thy  holy  church  her  champions  bred, 
And  claims  from  other  worlds  inspirited 
The  Star  of  Liberty  to  rise.     Nor  yet, 
(Grave  this  within  thy  heart !)  if  spiritual  things 
Be  lost  through  apathy,  or  scorn,  or  fear, 
Shalt  thou  thy  humbler  franchises  support, 
However  hardly  won,  or  justly  dear. 
What  came  from  Heaven,  to  Heaven  by  nature  clings, 
And  if  dissevered  thence,  its  course  is  short." 

Graver,  deeper,  more  important  truth  than  this  was  never  con- 
densed  into  the  like  human  composition.  Study  it,  ye  politicians 
and  statesmen,  and  not  only  statesmen  but  Christians,  and  not 
only  in  the  Old  World,  but  the  New !  In  England,  in  Geneva, 
in  America,  wherever  there  is  liberty  in  possession  or  liberty  in 
danger,  study  this.  If  spiritual  things  le  lost,  through  apathy,  or 
scorn,  or  fear,  or  formalism,  your  humbler  civil  privileges  you 
never  can  support,  at  what  costly  price  soever  they  may  have 
been  won,  or  however  dear  they  may  be  to  you.  Let  souls  be 
persecuted  for  religion,  or  your  religion  merged  into  a  State 
Sacrament,  or  a  church  commandment  fastened  by  the  State,  and 
your  State  will  be  a  despotism  and  yourselves  slaves.  Your 


CHAP,  xxix.]  TELL'S  TOWER.  J23 

true  freedom  must  come  from  God,  and  cling  to  God,  and  leave 
the  soul  alone  and  undisturbed  with  God,  for  God's  Spirit  alone 
can  support  it. 

"  What  came  from  Heaven  to  Heaven  by  nature  clings, 
And  if  dissevered  thence,  its  course  is  short !" 

I  will  not  omit  to  add  the  very  beautiful  third  stanza  of  those 
suggested  to  Wordsworth  by  TelPs  tower  at  Altorf,  on  which  the 
deeds  of  the  hero  are  painted.  It  was  not  indeed  an  Italian  pen- 
cil that  wrought  the  paintings,  but  neither  was  it  an  Italian  heart 
that  wrought  the  actions.  TelPs  boy  was  the  heir  of  his  father's 
courage,  and  the  very  personification  of  cheerful  filial  faith  and 
love. 

"  How  blest  the  souls,  who,  when  their  trials  come, 
Yield  not  to  terror  or  despondency, 
But  face,  like  that  sweet  Boy,  their  mortal  doom, 
Whose  head  the  ruddy  apple  tops,  while  he 
Expectant  stands  beneath  the  Linden  tree, 
Not  quaking,  like  the  timid  forest  game ; 
He  smiles,  the  hesitating  shaft  to  free, 
Assured  that  heaven  its  justice  will  proclaim, 
And  to  his  Father  give  its  own  unerring  aim." 

Before  coming  to  Altorf,  you  cross  a  rapid  stream,  in  which  it 
is  said  that  William  Tell  lost  his  life  in  his  old  age  by  endeavor- 
ing to  save  a  child  from  drowning,  when  the  waters  were  high. 
This  was  in  1350.  He  was  born  about  the  year  1280.  The  village 
of  Burglen,  his  birth-place,  is  a  most  lovely  spot  in  a  vale  of 
luxuriant  vegetation,  surrounded  by  great  mountains,  and  fit  to 
educate  a  spirit  like  TelPs.  Here  a  man  must  live  in  the  Past, 
the  great  Past,  and  hope  for  the  future.  Would  that  TelPs  great 
spirit  could  return  from  the  dead,  "  to  animate  an  age  forlorn," 
to  waken  his  native  vales  again  with  the  echoes  of  genuine 
liberty !  Would  that  such  a  spirit  might  rise,  to  break  the  fet- 
ters from  the  souls  of  his  countrymen,  worse,  by  far,  than  those 
on  the  body. 

"  Theje  is  a  bondage  worse  by  far  to  bear 
Than  his,  who  breathes,  by  roof  and  floor  and  wall 


124  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxix. 

Pent  in,  a  Tyrant's  solitary  thrall: 

'Tis  his,  who  walks  about  in  the  open  air, 

One  of  a  nation  who,  henceforth,  must  wear 

Their  fetters  in  their  souls.     For  who  can  be, 

Who,  even  the  best,  in  such  condition,  free 

From  self-reproach,  reproach  which  he  must  share 

With  human  nature  ?     Never  be  it  ours 

To  see  the  sun  how  brightly  it  will  shine 

And  know  that  noble  feeling,  manly  powers, 

Instead  of  gathering  strength,  must  droop  and  pine, 

And  earth  with  all  her  pleasant  fruits  and  flowers 

Fade  and  participate  in  Man's  decline." 

But  what  is  this  bondage  worse  by  far  to  bear  ?  It  is  the 
bondage  of  the  mind  and  heart  in  superstition  ;  it  is  the  absence 
of  religious  freedom ;  it  is  the  iron  age  of  intolerance,  and  the 
chaining  of  the  soul  in  a  spiritual  despotism  more  rigid  and  ter- 
rible than  that  of  nature  in  the  glaciers.  This  is  worse  to  bear. 
There  never  can  be  freedom  in  Switzerland,  till  there  is  freedom 
to  worship  God.  There  never  can  be  freedom,  till  there  is  the 
religion  of  voluntary  faith,  instead  of  a  despotic  form,  into  which 
you  are  pressed  and  held  fast  by  penal  law.  It  is  a  glorious 
word,  Where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  LIBERTY  ;  and 
now  a  spiritual  Tell  is  needed  in  Switzerland,  as  in  Rome,  to 
proclaim  this  to  his  countrymen,  to  tell  them  in  what  that  liberty 
consists,  and  to  show  them  that  an  infidel  mob,  and  a  church  with 
penal  persecuting  maxims,  are  alike  opposed  to  it  and  deadly, 
whether  under  a  monarchy,  a  despotism  or  a  republic. 

They  have  in  Switzerland  Romish  Republics,  but  is  republi- 
canism a  cure  for  intolerance  ?  Will  it  unloose  the  fettered 
souls  of  the  people  ?  No  more  than  the  mountain  winds  and  the 
summer  months  unbind  the  glaciers.  In  almost  every  Romish 
Republican  state  in  Switzerland  the  profession  of  Protestantism 
is  followed  by  the  loss  of  the  rights  of  citizenship,  as  well  as  in- 
capacity to  fill  any  public  office  in  the  State.  I  speak  the  lan- 
guage of  a  Swiss  citizen  himself,  who  reminds  me  of  the  example 
of  his  own  Christian  friend,  M.  Pfyffer,  formerly  a  Professor  of 
history  in  the  College  at  Lucerne,  but  who,  on  becoming  a  Pro- 
testant, lost  both  his  place  of  professor  and  his  rights  as  a  citizen. 
He  went  to  live  at  Lausanne,  a  voluntary  exile  from  a  country, 


CHAP,  xxix.]  INTOLERANCE.  125 

where  he  would  inevitably  be  persecuted.  Nevertheless,  they 
have  at  Lucerne  the  most  republican  institution,  they  have  uni- 
versal suffrage,  but  in  addition  to  this,  they  have  Romanism  and 
the  Jesuits.  Give  to  these  agents  the  requisite  majority  of  votes 
and  supremacy  of  power,  and  the  freaks  of  persecution  may  be 
even  more  startling  and  ferocious  in  a  republic  than  a  monarchy. 
Universal  suffrage,  once  fired  by  the  spirit  of  intolerance,  may 
be  worse  than  State  edicts  on  a  people,  with  whom  to  hear  is  to 
obey.  They  wear  their  fetters  in  their  souls,  who  wear  them  as 
a  part  of  the  mob  that  forged  them.  Many  masters  are  more 
intolerable  than  one. 

Every  part  of  earth,  every  heritage  of  intelligent  freemen, 
that  has  been  visited  with  the  fires  of  religious  persecution,  and 
every  spot  on  earth  that  has  not,  ought  to  dread  all  approximation 
to  the  union  of  Church  and  State  ;  for  power  converts  even  de- 
votion into  superstition  and  fanaticism,  and  they  that  have  got 
free  themselves  run  to  fasten  their  cast  off  fetters  upon  others. 
If  the  Church  does  not  persecute  through  the  State,  the  State  will 
oppress  the  Church,  will  make  it  a  political  tool,  or  nothing. 
Read  the  commentary  in  the  Canton  de  Vaud,  where  a  democra- 
tic State,  not  Roman  Catholic,  enacts  the  persecuting  antics  of  the 
English  Church  and  State  under  Queen  Elizabeth,  while  the 
people  are  permitted  by  the  State  to  mob  the  assemblies  of  volun- 
tary Christians  !  Where  the  Church  relies  on  the  State  for  sup- 
port, it  is  an  abject  creature,  fawning,  and  ready  to  be  perse- 
cuted ;  where  it  is  a  part  of  the  State  by  Establishment,  and 
holds  the  legislative  and  executive  power,  it  is  a  ferocious  crea- 
tnre,  ready  to  persecute  ;  it  is  the  cat  or  the  tiger,  as  circum- 
stances require  ;  it  will  catch  mice  for  the  State,  and  sleep  by 
the  fire-side,  or  it  will  abide  in  jungles  and  play  the  Oriental 
Despot. 

This  is  not  the  true  Church  of  Christ,  but  the  Church  cor- 
rupted, for  his  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world.  When  the  powers 
of  this  world,  instead  of  being  sanctified  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ/ 
and  so  put  in  subjection  to  his  authority,  are  committed  to  the 
Church  and  subjected  to  the  use  of  the  Church  under  her  au- 
thority, that  is  not  the  advancement  of  Christ's  kingdom,  nor  is 
that  the  way  in  which  Christ's  kingdom  can  advance  ,  for  Christ's 


126  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxix. 

kingdom  is  spiritual,  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  not  in  the  govern- 
ment of  empires,  which  government,  just  so  far  as  it  is  committed 
to  the  Church,  is  but  the  act  and  voice  of  the  Tempter,  All  these 
things  will  I  give  thee,  if  thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship  me. 

All  error  is  intolerant ;  but  even  the  Truth,  if  put  into  form 
without  love,  will  roast  men  alive  with  no  more  remorse  than 
error  itself.  So  it  is  only  the  truth  in  love,  that  can  make  men 
free.  Put  into  form,  and  fought  for  as  form,  without  love,  it  may 
make  men  as  bitter,  as  violent,  as  malignant,  as  intolerant,  as  any 
despotism  of  hierarchical  error.  Because  it  becomes  a  selfish 
thing,  a  proud  thing,  a  thing  of  meum  and  tuum,  a  thing  of  con- 
quest, a  possession  of  selfishness  and  pride. 

All  the  fighting  for  truth  done  without  love,  is  not  for  God,  but 
for  self  and  Satan.  If  you  really  love  the  truth,  you  will  love 
it  under  other  forms  besides  your  own ;  you  will  not  fight  to  im- 
pose your  form  on  others.  But  if  you  belong  to  a  form  without 
love,  and  set  out  to  extend  the  truth  in  your  form,  you  inevitably 
become  intolerant,  and  if  you  had  the  power,  you  would  be  a 
fierce  persecutor.  There  is  no  safety  for  the  world  against  your 
intolerance,  but  in  your  weakness. 

We  want  protection  for  our  religious  convictions,  not  only 
against  intolerance  imposing  an  established  form,  not  only  against 
the  Church  without  love,  the  Church  as  an  Inquisition,  the 
Church  as  .a  Despotism,  but  also  against  the  intolerance  of  the 
people,  against  the  caprices  of  popular  liberty  associated  with 
power.  We  want  a  religious  liberty  above  and  separate  from  a 
political  liberty,  and  which  can  no  more  be  invaded  by  it,  than 
a  man's  dwelling-house  can  be  torn  down  with  impunity,  or  a 
church  or  a  city  fired  by  a  mob.  This  is  impossible,  when  the 
Church  is  dependent  on  the  State.  The  State  will,  if  it  pleases, 
direct  the  Church  what  to  teach,  and  how  to  teach  it,  and  if  she 
refuses,  will  punish,  will  persecute.  The  State  may  be  the 
purest  of  republics,  and  yet  may  indulge  in  the  most  atrocious 
despotism  in  matters  of  religion.  Therefore,  a  constitutional 
State  must  have  no  power  to  meddle  with  religion  at  all,  except 
to  protect  its  quiet  worship.  The  whole  world  must  inevitably 
come  to  this  conclusion,  and  then  the  whole  world  will  be  still. 
Then  love  will  reign,  and  truth  will  burn  brightly.  The  State 


CHAP,  xxix.]      RELIGIOUS  FREEDOM  AND  POWER.  127 

itself  will  more  readily  become  religious,  when  it  is  deprived  of 
all  power  to  modify  and  govern  religion. 

How  impressively  are  these  truths  illustrated  by  what  is  now 
going  on  in  Germany  and  Switzerland  !  God  in  his  providence 
is  showing  us  that  neither  Evangelical  Protestantism,  nor  Roman- 
isrn,  nor  Rationalism,  whether  under  a  republic  or  a  despotism, 
can  be  entrusted  with  State  power.  The  State  cannot  be  en- 
trusted with  power  over  the  Church  •  for,  some  way  or  other,  it 
will  act  the  tyrant.  The  Church  cannot  be  entrusted  with  power 
over  the  State,  or  with  the  use  of  the  State  to  enforce  her  rubrics 
or  her  teachings ;  for  the  Church  also,  sooner  or  later,  acts  the 
tyrant,  when  tempted  to  it.  The  temptation  comes  under  the 
guise  of  an  angel,  under  the  plausible  pretence  of  uniformity  in 
worship,  and  the  advancing  of  the  Redeemer's  kingdom.  So 
much  the  more  dangerous  it  is,  so  much  the  more  earnestly  and 
carefully  to  be  repelled.  Religion  is  a  voluntary  thing,  both  in 
form  and  doctrine.  Let  every  State  and  every  Church  respect  it 
as  such,  and  cease  from  enforcing  it,  and  leave  to  Christianity 

The  Word  of  God  ONLY 

The  Grace  of  Christ  ONLY 

The  Work  of  the  Spirit  ONLY, 

and  then  intolerance  and  strife  will  cease,  truth  and  love  will  pre- 
vail, error  will  die  out  of  existence,  and  throughout  all  nations 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  will  come. 


128  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP    xxx. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

Lake  of  Uri  and  town  of  Lucerne. 

FROM  Altorf  a  short  walk  brings  you  to  Fluellen,  the  low  un- 
healthy part  of  the  Reuss  Valley,  on  the  celebrated  Lake  of 
Lucerne.  You  embark,  morning  or  evening,  in  the  steamer  for 
the  town  of  Lucerne  at  the  other  end,  to  enjoy  a  sail  amidst  the 
almost  unequalled  scenery  and  unrivalled  historical  associations, 
by  which  it  is  surrounded.  You  embark  where  Gessler  em- 
barked,  with  Tell  in  chains,  you  pass  the  table  rock,  where  Tell 
leaped  on  shore  from  the  tempest  and  the  tyrant,  and  sprang 
lightly  up  the  mountains  ;  also  the  little  chapel  erected  in  the 
year  1380  by  the  men  of  Uri  to  his  memory  and  the  memory  of 
his  escape,  thirty -one  years  after  his  death,  while  one  hundred  and 
fourteen  individuals  were  still  living,  who  had  known  the  hero 
personally ;  you  pass  the  sacred  field  of  Grutli,  where  the  mid- 
night oath  was  taken  by  the  patriots.  The  scenery  is  in  keep- 
ing with  the  associations,  the  associations  with  the  scenery. 
Assuredly  the  Lake  is  one  of  the  sublimest  in  the  world ;  it  is 
useless  attempting  to  describe  it,  or  the  mountains  that  rise  in 
such  amazing  grandeur  out  of  it,  or  the  bays  that  in  such  ex- 
quisite beauty  allure  you  to  explore  its  winding  recesses. 

One  of  the  precipitous  Alps  whose  foundations  it  conceals, 
shows,  high  up  in  the  air,  a  white  sear  where  a  fragment  of  rock 
1200  feet  wide  broke  from  the  mountain  and  fell  into  the  Lake 
in  the  year  1801,  raising  such  a  wave  in  its  fall,  that  at  the  dis- 
tance of  a  mile  a  hamlet  was  overwhelmed  and  five  houses  de- 
stroyed by  it,  with  the  loss  of  a  number  of  lives.  The  size  of 
this  fragment,  though  the  scar  in  the  mountain  looks  so  incon- 
siderable, may  serve  to  direct  the  traveller's  measurement  of 
those  huge  avalanches,  which  at  the  distance  of  leagues  look  so 
enormous  on  the  Jungfrau,  and  which  on  other  mountains  have 
buried  whole  villages  and  swept  whole  forests  in  their  way. 


CHAP,  xxx.]  REGION  OF  LUCERNE.  129 

Lucerne  is  a  picturesque  and  lovely  village  situated  like  Ge- 
neva at  the  effluence  of  a  sea-green  river  from  an  azure  lake, 
and  having  many  of  the  constituents  of  beauty  and  romance  that 
make  Geneva  such  an  earthly  paradise,  and  some  elements  of 
originality  that  Geneva  does  not  possess.  There  is  no  Mont 
Blanc,  hanging  its  piles  of  snow  in  the  heavens  on  one  side,  nor 
any  Jura  range,  skirting  the  golden  sunset  sky  and  shadowy 
earth  with  its  green  fringe  on  the  other ;  but  there  are  grand  and 
varied  mountains,  gazing  into  the  crystal  depths ;  there  is  an 
arrowy  river,  dividing  the  town,  having  journeyed  all  the  way 
through  heroic  lands  down  the  valley  of  the  St.  Gothard  from  a 
little  tarn  among  the  mountain  summits  ;  there  are  picturesque 
old  feudal  walls  and  watch-towers ;  there  are  long  bridges,  which 
are  covered  galleries  of  antique  paintings ;  and  there  are  many 
points  of  interest  and  of  beautiful  scenery,  with  wild  wood-walks, 
and  sudden  openings,  and  rich  panoramas,  where  morning  wakes 
the  world  to  music  and  beauty,  and  where  at  evening  the  western 
clouds,  mountains,  groves,  orchards,  and  all  the  shadow-dappled 
foliage,  burn  richly  in  "  the  slant  beams  of  the  sinking  sun." 

"  My  friends  emerge 

Beneath  the  wide,  wide  heaven,  and  view  again 
The  many-steepled  tract  magnificent 
Of  hilly  fields  and  meadows,  and  the  lake 
With  some  fair  bark  perhaps,  whose  sails  light  up 
The  slip  of  smooth  clear  blue  betwixt  two  isles 
Of  purple  shadow." 

Here  a  man,  whose  misfortune  it  may  have  been  to  be  born  in 
the  heartless  heart  of  some  great  city,  might,  if  it  were  not  for 
the  demon  of  intolerance,  find  a  spot  for  his  family,  to  grow  up 
quietly  under  all  the  influences  of  nature.  And  if  he  have  a 
dear  child  like  the  Poet's,  here  he  may  muse,  whether  amidst 
the  Frost  at  Midnight,  or  the  summer  stars,  and  watching  the 
slumbers  of  his  cradled  infant,  may  say, 

"  Dear  Babe,  that  sleepest  cradled  by  my  side, 
Whose  gentle  breathings,  heard  in  this  deep  calm, 
Fill  up  the  interspersed  vacancies 
And  momentary  pauses  of  the  thought, 
My  babe  so  beautiful !  it  thrills  my  heart 
PART  II.  10 


130  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxx. 

With  tender  gladness,  thus  to  look  at  thee 
And  think  that  thou  shalt  learn  far  other  lore 
And  in  far  other  scenes  !     For  I  was  reared 
In  the  great  city,  pent  mid  cloisters  dim, 
And  saw  naught  lovely  but  the  sky  and  stars. 
But  thou,  my  babe  !  shalt  wander  like  a  breeze, 
By  lakes  and  sandy  shores,  beneath  the  crags 
Of  ancient  mountains,  and  beneath  the  clouds, 
Which  image  in  their  bulk  both  lakes  and  shores 
And  mountain  crags :  so  shalt  thou  see  and  hear 
The  lovely  shapes  and  sounds  intelligible 
Of  that  eternal  language,  which  thy  God 
Utters,  who  from  eternity  doth  teach 
Himself  in  all,  and  all  things  in  himself. 
Great  Universal  Teacher  !  He  shall  mould 
Thy  spirit,  and  by  giving  make  it  ask. 

"  Therefore  all  seasons  shall  be  sweet  to  thee, 
Whether  the  Summer  clothe  the  general  earth 
With  greenness,  or  the  redbreast  sit  and  sing 
Betwixt  the  tufts  of  snow  on  the  bare  branch 
Of  mossy  apple-tree,  while  the  nigh  thatch 
Smokes  in  the  sun- thaw  ;  whether  the  eave-drops  fall, 
Heard  only  in  the  trances  of  the  blast, 
Or  if  the  secret  ministry  of  Frost 
Shall  hang  them  up  in  silent  icicles, 
Quietly  shining  to  the  shining  moon." 

I  say,  were  it  not  for  the  demon  of  intolerance,  the  binding  of 
the  conscience  in  the  fetters  of  Church  and  State.  This  is  the 
pest  that  still  afflicts  Switzerland,  worse  by  far  than  the  scourge  of 
Cretinism  and  the  goitre,  and  accompanied,  in  this  region  of 
Lucerne,  with  an  unaccountable  passion  for  the  Jesuits,  whose 
teachings  in  morality  and  political  science  are  so  at  war  with  the 
immemorial  freedom  of  Tell's  mountains.  Lucerne  is  one  of 
the  three  towns,  with  Berne  and  Zurich,  where  the  confederative 
Diet  holds  its  sessions.  It  is  styled  "  Town  and  Republic,"  hav- 
ing a  Council  of  One  Hundred  for  its  government,  divided  into  a 
daily  Council  of  thirty-six,  and  the  larger  Council  of  sixty-four, 
the  whole  Hundred  meeting  every  three  years,  or,  if  the  daily 
Council  require  it,  oftener.  At  the  head  of  the  Council  is  a 
Chief  Magistrate,  called  the  Avoyer.  The  number  of  inhabit- 
ants in  the  town  is  about  8000  Romanists,  and  two  hundred 


CHAP,  xxx.]  LIONS  AT  LUCERNE.  131 

Protestants,  the  Protestants  being  excluded  from  all  participation 
in  the  rights  of  citizens,  and  only  admitted  on  sufferance.  How 
different  from  the  manner  in' which  we  receive  Romanists  in  our 
own  country !  When  will  the  example  of  equal  citizenship 
among  all  religionists  be  followed  abroad,  by  Romanists  towards 
Protestants  ? 

There  is  an  arsenal  in  Lucerne  well  worth  visiting  for  its  his- 
torical trophies.  Here  you  may  see  the  very  shirt  of  mail  in 
wfrich  Duke  Leopold  of  Austria  was  struck  down  at  the  great 
battle  of  Sempach.  There  is  also  the  monument  of  Thorwald- 
sen  to  the  memory  of  the  Swiss  guards,  one  of  the  finest  things 
of  the  kind  in  the  world,  one  of  the  few  monuments  of  simple 
grandeur  and  pathos  speaking  at  once  to  the  heart,  and  needing 
neither  artist  nor  critic  to  tell  you  it  is  beautiful.  There  are  the 
curious  old  bridges,  like  children's  picture-books,  amusing  you 
much  in  the  same  manner,  where  indeed  you  can  scarcely  get 
across  the  bridge,  you  are  so  taken  with  examining  the  rude  old 
sketches.  There  are  all  the  scenes  of  the  Old  Testament  hang- 
ing above  you,  as  you  pass  one  way,  and  all  the  scenes  of  the 
New  as  you  pass  the  other.  This  Scriptural  bridge  was  1380  fee" 
in  length,  and  when  you  are  tired  with  looking  at  the  pictures, 
you  may  rest  your  eyes  by  leaning  on  the  parapet,  and  gazing 
over  the  lovely  Lake,  with  the  sail-boats  flitting  across  it,  and 
the  distant  mountains  towering  above  it.  In  the  roof  of  another 
bridge  are  represented  the  heroic  passages  of  native  Swiss  his- 
tory, and  in  yet  another  the  whole  curious  array  of  Holbein's 
Dance  of  Death. 

Wordsworth  says  truly  that  "these  pictures  are  not  to  be  spoken 
of  as  works  of  Art,  but  they  are  instruments  admirably  answer- 
ing the  purpose  for  which  they  were  designed."  And  indeed 
when  they  were  first  painted,  and  for  a  long  time  after,  how  deep 
must  have  been  the  impression  made  by  them  on  the  people's 
mind,  especially  the  hearts  of  the  children.  Fathers  and  mothers 
with  their  little  ones  in  hand,  from  far  and  near,  wandered  up 
and  down  in  these  picture-books  of  the  history  of  Christ  and  of 
the  country,  telling  their  stories  and  their  lessons.  It  was  a  sin- 
gular conception,  and  a  very  happy  one,  "  turning  common  dust 
to  gold,"  and  inviting  every  passenger  of  the  bridge  to  get  more 


132  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP,  xxx 

than  the  value  of  his  toll  (if  there  ever  was  any)  by  thinking  on 
his  pilgrimage.  Wordsworth  says  that  the  sacred  pictures  are 
240  in  number.  His  lines  are  beautiful,  produced  by  the  re- 
membrance of  them. 

"  One  after  one,  its  Tablets  that  unfold 
The  whole  design  of  Scripture  history ; 
From  the  first  tasting  of  the  fatal  Tree, 
Till  the  bright  star  appeared  in  eastern  skies, 
Announcing  One  was  born  mankind  to  free  ; 
His  acts,  his  wrongs,  his  final  sacrifice ; 
Lessons  for  every  heart,  a  Bible  for  all  eyes. 

"  Long  may  these  homely  works  devised  of  old, 
These  simple  efforts  of  Helvetian  skill, 
Aid,  with  congenial  influence,  to  uphold 
The  State,— the  Country's  destiny  to  mould  ; 
Turning,  for  them  who  pass,  the  common  dust 
Of  servile  opportunity  to  gold  ; 
Filling  the  soul  with  sentiments  august, 
The  beautiful,  the  brave,  the  holy,  and  the  just !" 

Mount  Pilatus  is  the  Storm  King  of  the  Lake,  always  brewing 
mischief;  and  a  good  reason  for  it,  according  to  the  strange  old 
legend  that  he  who  washed  his  hands  of  Christ's  blood  before  all 
the  people,  and  yet  delivered  him  up  to  the  people,  drowned  him- 
self in  a  black  lake  on  the  top  of  the  mountain.  How  he  came 
to  be  there  is  accounted  for  by  his  being  banished  into  Gaul  by 
Tiberius,  and  into  the  mountains  by  Conscience.  There  still  his 
vexed  spirit  wanders,  and  invites  the  tempest.  If  ever  in  the 
morning  sunshine  you  get  upon  the  forehead  of  the  mountain, 
you  are  sure  to  have  bad  weather  afterwards,  but  if  in  the  even- 
ing it  is  clear,  this  is  a  good  prophecy.  Translating  the  common 
proverb  of  the  people  concerning  it  in  the  reverse  order, 

"  When  Pilatus  doffs  his  hat, 
Then  the  weather  will  be  wet." 

But  when  he  keeps  his  slouched  cloud-beaver  over  his  brows  all 
day,  you  may  expect  fair  weather  for  your  excursions,  the  storm- 
spirit  not  being  abroad,  but  brooding. 


CHAP,  xxxi.]  ASCENT  OF  THE  RIGHI.  133 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Ascent  of  the  Righi.     Extraordinary  glory  of  the  view. 

IF  you  are  favored  with  a  fine  clear  sunrise,  then,  of  all  excur- 
sions from  Lucerne,  that  to  the  summit  of  the  Righi  is  unrivalled 
in  the  world  for  its  beauty.  It  is  comparatively  rare  that  travel- 
lers are  so  favored,  and  the  Guide-books  warn  you  not  to  be  dis- 
appointed, by  quoting,  as  the  more  common  fate,  the  sad  Orphic 
ululation  of  some  stricken  poet,  who  came  down  ignorant  of  sun- 
rise, but  well  acquainted  with  the  rain. 

"  Seven  weary  up-hill  leagues  we  sped, 

The  setting  sun  to  see ; 
Sullen  and  grim  he  went  to  bed, 

Sullen  and  grim  went  we. 
Nine  sleepless  hours  of  night  we  passed 

The  rising  sun  to  see  ; 
Sullen  and  grim  he  rose  again, 

Sullen  and  grim  rose  we." 

After  hesitating  some  days,  because  of  unpromising  responses 
from  the  cloud-sybils,  we  at  length  resolved  to  try  it,  for  the 
ascent  is  worth  making,  at  all  events.  We  chose  the  way  across 
the  Lake  by  the  village  of  Weggis,  which  place  we  reached  by 
a  lovely  sail  in  a  small  boat  with  two  rowers,  a  thousand  fold 
pleasanter  way,  and  more  in  keeping  with  the  wild  sequestered 
scenery,  than  a  noisy  crowded  steamer.  There  are  several  other 
routes,  as  you  may  learn  by  the  Guide-books,  but  I  shall  mention 
only  ours.  Landing  at  Weggis,  you  immediately  commence  the 
ascent  of  the  mountain,  fatiguing  to  the  uttermost  on  a  warm 
afternoon,  but  filled  with  views  all  the  way  up,  of  Lake  and 
snowy  mount,  and  wild-wood  scenery,  beautiful  enough  to  pay 
you  abundantly,  even  if  you  saw  nothing  at  the  summit  but  the 
ground  you  tread  upon.  We  made  our  ascent  in  the  afternoon, 
so  as  to  be  upon  the  mountain  by  night,  all  ready  for  the  morn- 


134  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxxi. 

ing's  glorious  spectacle ;  but  it  would  have  been  far  more  com- 
fortable to  have  come  up  one  morning,  and  stayed  till  the  next. 

The  sunset  was  one  of  extraordinary  splendor,  as  regards  the 
clouds  and  their  coloring  in  the  golden  West,  and  we  enjoyed 
also  a  very  extensive  view,  but  not  the  view.  We  had  set  out 
from  Lucerne  with  a  burden  of  forebodings,  almost  every  party 
that  had  made  the  ascent  for  weeks  having  returned  with  a  load 
of  disappointments ;  and  though  the  evening  was  now  fine,  the 
next  morning  might  be  cloudy.  It  is  an  excursion  for  which 
you  must  have  clear  weather,  or,  as  to  the  particular  scene  of 
glory  for  which  you  make  it,  which  is  the  sunrise  upon  the  vast 
range  of  mountains  visible  from  the  Righi,  it  is  nothing.  An 
ordinarily  fine  morning  will  not  answer  ;  you  must  have  a  clear 
sky  the  moment  the  sun  rises  into  it.  Though  the  whole  hea- 
vens beside  be  fair,  yet  if  there  happen  to  be  a  stripe  or  bank  of 
clouds  lying  along  the  eastern  horizon,  your  sport  is  up,  you  lose 
the  great  spectacle.  The  fog,  which  sometimes  breeds  in  fine 
weather,  is  still  more  destructive.  You  might  as  well  be  abed 
under  your  blanket.  So  it  may  easily  be  conceived  that  of  the 
many  thousands,  who  travel  thither,  very  few  obtain  the  object 
of  their  journey.  Nevertheless,  in  other  respects,  as  I  have 
said,  the  mountain  is  well  worth  ascending.  A  clear  sunset, 
together  with  the  prospects  bursting  on  you  in  your  way  up,  are 
rewards  to  give  a  day  for,  and  a  hard  journey. 

The  brow  of  the  mountain  is  as  perpendicular  as  Arthur's 
Crag  at  Edinburgh,  almost  cresting  over  like  the  sea-surf,  or  a 
wave  in  mid  ocean.  In  the  evening,  walking  along  the  edge  of 
the  precipice,  the  vast  scene  is  of  a  deep  and  solenm  beauty, 
though  you  are  waiting  for  the  dawn  to  reveal  its  several  features. 
The  lights  in  so  many  villages  far  below,  over  so  great  an  extent, 
produce  a  wild  and  magic  picturesqueness.  There  at  our  left 
is  Lucerne,  here  at  our  feet  is  Kussnacht,  a  few  steps  to  the  right 
and  Arth  is  below  you,  with  many  glancing  lights  in  the  sur- 
rounding chalets.  The  evening  church  bells  are  ringing,  and 
the  sound  comes  undulating  upward,  so  deep,  so  musical !  There 
is  no  moon,  but  the  stars  are  out,  and  methinks  they  look  much 
brighter,  more  startling,  more  earnest,  than  they  do  from  the 
world  below.  How  far  we  are  above  that  world !  How  pure 


CHAP,  xxxi.]  SUNSET  ON  THE  RIGHT.  135 


and  still  the  air  around  us !  Is  the  soul  as  much  elevated  to- 
wards  the  air  of  heaven  ?  Ah,  if  by  climbing  a  mountain  top 
we  could  become  spiritually  minded,  how  easy  would  it  be !  But 
we  have  brought  the  self-same  mind  and  disposition  up  the  Righi, 
that  sailed  with  our  bodies  across  the  Lake,  and  there  is  the  same 
moral  atmosphere  here,  as  in  the  world  below.  There  is  no 
place  lower  than  heaven,  that  is  above  sin  ;  and  here  we  are  at 
least  a  hundred  people  in  all,  and  room  enough  for  selfishness, 
were  it  only  in  elbowing  for  room. 

The  summit  where  we  are  is  called  the  Culm  of  the  Righi, 
because  it  is  the  culminating,  or  highest  point,  running  up  with 
a  turf  covered  slope,  to  the  wave-like  summit.  A  few  steps 
down  the  slope  stands  the  little  inn,  with  a  second  rough  lodging 
house  below,  though  all  accommodations  are  insufficient  for  the 
crowd  of  sleepers  waiting  for  the  sun.  Half  an  hour's  walk 
farther  down,  upon  a  lower  summit,  there  is  another  inn,  from 
which  those  who  spend  the  night  there  do  generally  issue  too  late 
from  their  beds  to  arrive  at  the  summit  with  the  dawn,  and  so 
lose  the  finest  part  of  the  vision.  We  slept  little  and  unquietly, 
and  we  rose  while  the  stars  were  still  bright,  but  beginning  to 
pale  a  little  in  the  East  with  the  breaking  light  of  day  ;  and  no 
man  who  has  not  been  in  the  same  situation  can  tell  the  delight 
with  which  we  threw  open  the  windows,  and  found  a  clear,  fresh, 
glorious  morning.  TMie  sentinel  of  the  dawn  for  the  sleepers  in 
the  inn  seized  his  long  wooden  horn,  and  blew  a  blast  in  doors 
and  out  to  waken  them,  and  then  one  after  another  emerged  into 
the  open  air,  and  hastened  to  the  top  of  the  mountain  to  watch 
the  movements  of  the  sun.  It  was  very  cold,  and  the  travellers 
who  had  come  away  without  cloaks,  had  committed  a  most  un- 
comfortable and  nipping  mistake,  which  they  sometimes  rectify 
by  wrapping  themselves  in  the  blankets  under  which  they  have 
slept ;  a  practice  which  has  suggested  the  invitation,  in  form  of 
a  warning,  to  be  found  in  every  room,  that  those  who  carry  off 
the  bed  coverings  shall  pay  a  tax  often  batz  each.  So  in  a  very 
cold  dawn,  you  may  see  the  mountains  covered  with  shivering 
blanket  spectres. 

It  was  the  sixth  of  September,  and  the  most  perfectly  beautiful 
morning  that  can  be  imagined.  At  a  quarter  past  three  the  stars 


136  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xixi. 

were  reigning  supreme  in  the  heavens,  with  just  enough  of  the 
old  moon  left  to  make  a  trail  of  light  in  the  shape  of  a  little  silver 
boat  among  them.  But  speedily  the  horizon  began  to  redden 
over  the  eastern  range  of  mountains,  and  then  the  dawn  stole  on 
in  such  a  succession  of  deepening  tints,  that  nothing  but  the  hues 
of  the  preceding  sunset  could  be  more  beautiful.  But  there  is 
this  great  difference  between  the  sunrise  and  sunset,  that  the 
hues  of  sunset  are  every  moment  deepening  as  you  look  .upon 
them,  until  again  they  fade  into  the  darkness,  while  those  of  the 
sunrise  gradually  fade  into  the  light  of  day.  It  is  difficult  to 
say  which  process  is  most  beautiful ;  for  if  you  could  make 
everything  stand  still  around  you,  if  you  could  stereotype  or  stay 
the  process  for  an  hour,  you  could  not  tell  whether  it  were  the 
morning  dawn  or  the  evening  twilight. 

A  few  long,  thin  stripes  of  fleecy  cloud  lay  motionless  above 
the  eastern  horizon,  like  layers  of  silver  lace,  dipped  first  in 
crimson,  then  in  gold,  then  in  pink,  then  lined  with  an  ermine 
of  light,  just  as  if  the  moon  had  been  lengthened  in  soft  furrows 
along  the  sky.  This  scene  in  the  East  attracts  every  eye  at 
first,  but  it  is  not  here  that  the  glory  of  the  view  is  to  be  looked 
for.  This  glory  is  in  that  part  of  the  horizon  on  which  the  sun 
first  falls,  as  he  struggles  up  behind  the  mountains  to  flood  the 
world  with  light.  And  the  reason  why  it  is  so  glorious  is  be- 
cause, long  before  you  call  it  sunrise  in  the^East,  he  lights  up  in 
the  West  a  range  of  colossal  pyres,  that  look  like  blazing  cressets 
kindled  from  the  sky  and  fed  with  naptha. 

The  object  most  conspicuous  as  the  dawn  broke,  and  indeed 
the  most  sublimely  beautiful,  was  the  vast  enormous  range  of  the 
snowy  mountains  of  the  Oberland,  without  spot  or  veil  of  cloud 
or  mist  to  dim  them,  the  Finsteraarhorn  at  the  left  and  the  Jung, 
frau  and  Silberhorn  at  the  right,  peak  after  peak  and  rrflps  after 
mass,  glittering  with  a  cold  wintry  whiteness  in  the  grey  dawn. 
Almost  the  exact  half  of  the  circumference  of  the  horizon  com- 
manded  before  and  behind  in  our  view,  was  filled  with  these 
peaks  and  masses  of  snow  and  ice,  then  lower  down,  the  moun- 
tains of  bare  rock,  and  lower  still  the  earth  with  mounts  of  ver- 
dure ;  and  this  section  of  the  horizontal  circumference,  which  is 
filled  with  the  vast  ranges  of  the  Oberland  Alps,  being  almost  due 


CHAP,  xxxi.]  SUNRISE  ON  THE  RIGHI.  137 

West  from  the  sun's  first  appearance,  it  is  on  their  tops  that  the 
rising  rays  first  strike. 

This  was  the  scene  for  which  we  watched,  and  it  seems  as  if 
nothing  in  nature  can  ever  again  be  so  beautiful.  It  was  as  if 
an  angel  had  flown  round  the  horizon  of  mountain  ranges,  and 
lighted  up  each  of  their  white  pyramidal  points  in  succession, 
like  a  row  of  gigantic  lamps  burning  with  rosy  fires.  Just  so 
the  sun  suddenly  tipped  the  highest  points  and  lines  of  the  snowy 
outline,  and  then,  descending  lower  on  the  body  of  the  mountains, 
it  was  as  if  an  invisible  Omnipotent  hand  had  taken  them,  and 
dipped  the  whole  range  in  a  glowing  pink  ;  the  line  between  the 
white  cold  snow  untouched  by  the  sunlight,  and  the  warm  roseate 
hue  above,  remaining  perfectly  distinct.  This  effect  continued 
some  minutes,  becoming,  up  to  a  certain  point,  more  and  more 
beautiful. 

We  were  like  children  in  a  dark  room,  watching  for  the  light- 
ing up  of  some  great  transparency.  Or,  to  use  that  image  with 
which  the  Poet  Dante  endeavored  to  describe  the  expectant  gaze 
of  Beatrice  in  Paradise,  awaiting  the  splendors  to  be  revealed, 
we  might  say,  connecting  some  passages,  and  adapting  the 
imagery, 

'*  E'en  as  the  bird,  who  midst  the  leafy  bower 
Has  in  her  nest  sat  darkling  through  the  night, 
With  her  sweet  brood  ;  impatient  to  descry 
Their  wished  looks,  and  to  brina^  home  their  food 
In  the  fond  quest  unconscious  of  her  toil : 
She  of  the  time  prevenient,  on  the  spray, 
That  overhangs  their  couch,  with  wakeful  gaze 
Expects  the  sun  ;  nor  ever  till  the  dawn 
Removeth  from  the  east  her  eager  ken. 
Wistfully  thus  we  looked  to  see  the  heavens 
Wax  more  and  more  resplendent,  till  on  earth 
Her  mountain  peaks  burned  as  with  rosy  flame. 

'Twixt  gladness  and  amaze 
In  sooth  no  will  had  we  to  utter  aught, 
Or  hear.     And  as  a  pilgrim,  when  he  rests 
Within  the  temple  of  his  vow,  looks  round, 
In  breathless  awe,  and  hopes  some  time  to  tell 
Of  all  its  goodly  state  ;  even  so  our  eyes 
Coursed  up  and  down  along  the  living  light, 
Now  low,  and  now  aloft,  and  now  around 


138  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxxi. 

Visiting  every  step.    Each  mount  did  seem 
Colossal  ruby,  whereon  so  inwrought 
The  sunbeam  glowed,  yet  soft,  it  flamed  intense 
In  ecstasy  of  glory." 

In  truth  no  word  was  uttered  when  that  scene  became  visible. 
Each  person  gazed  in  silence,  or  spake  as  in  a  whisper.  It  was 
as  if  we  witnessed  some  supernatural  revelation,  where  mighty 
spirits  were  the  actors  between  earth  and  heaven ; 

"  With  such  ravishing  light 
And  mantling  crimson,  in  transparent  air, 
The  splendors  shot  before  us." 

And  yet  a  devout  soul  might  have  almost  felt,  seeing  those  fires 
kindled  as  on  the  altars  of  God  made  visible,  as  if  it  heard  the 
voices  of  Seraphim  crying,  Holy,  Holy,  Holy  is  the  Lord  of 
Hosts,  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory !  For  indeed,  the 
vision  was  so  radiant,  so  full  of  sudden,  vast,  and  unimaginable 
beauty  and  splendor,  that  methinks  a  phalanx  of  the  Sons  of 
God,  who  might  have  been  passing  at  that  moment,  could  not 
have  helped  stopping  and  shouting  for  joy  as  on  the  morning  of 
creation. 

This  was  the  transient  view,  which  to  behold,  one  might  well 
undertake  a  voyage  across  the  Atlantic ;— of  a  glory  and  a 
beauty  indescribable,  and  no  where  else  in  the  world  to  be  en- 
joyed, and  here  only  in  perfect  weather.  After  these  few  mo- 
ments, when  the  sun  rose  so  high,  that  the  whole  masses  of  snow 
upon  the  mountain  ranges  were  lighted  with  the  same  rosy  light, 
it  grew  rapidly  fainter,  till  you  could  no  longer  distinguish  the 
deep  exquisite  pink  and  rosy  hues  by  means  of  their  previous 
contrast  with  the  cold  white.  Next  the  sun's  rays  fell  upon  the 
bare  rocky  peaks,  where  there  was  neither  snow  nor  vegetation, 
making  them  shine  like  jasper,  and  next  on  the  forests  and  soft 
grassy  slopes,  and  so  down  into  the  deep  bosom  of  the  vales. 
The  pyramidal  shadow  cast  by  the  Righi  mountain  was  most 
distinct  and  beautiful,  but  the  atmospheric  phenomenon  of  the 
Spectre  of  the  Righi  was  not  visible. 

This  amazing  panorama  is  said  to  extend  over  a  circumfer- 
ence of  300  miles.  In  all  this  region,  when  the  upper  glory  of 


CHAP,  xxxi.]  SUNRISE  ON  THE  RIGHT.  139 

the  heavens  and  mountain  peaks  has  ceased  playing,  then,  as 
the  sun  gets  higher,  forests,  lakes,  hills,  rivers,  trees,  and  villages, 
at  first  indistinct  and  grey  in  shadows,  become  flooded  with 
sunshine,  and  almost  seem  floating  up  towards  you.  There  was 
for  us  another  feature  of  the  view,  constituting  by  itself  one  of 
the  most  novel  and  charming  sights  of  Swiss  scenery,  but  which 
does  not  always  accompany  the  panorama  from  the  Righi,  even 
in  a  fine  morning.  On  Earth,  the  morning  may  be  too  fine. 
This  was  the  soft,  smooth  white  body  of  mist,  lying  on  most  of 
the  lakes  and  on  the  vales,  a  sea  of  mist,  floating,  or  rather  brood- 
ing, like  a  white  dove,  over  the  landscape.  The  spots  of  land 
at  first  visible  in  the  midst  of  it  were  just  like  islands  half  emerg- 
ing to  the  view.  It  lay  over  the  bay  of  Kussnacht  at  our  feet, 
like  the  white  robe  of  an  infant  in  the  cradle,  but  the  greater 
part  of  the  Lake  of  Lucerne  was  sleeping  quietly  without  it,  as 
an  undressed  babe.  Over  the  whole  of  the  Lake  of  Zug  the 
mist  was  at  first  motionless,  but  in  the  breath  of  the  morning  it 
began  slowly  to  move  altogether  towards  the  West,  disclosing  the 
village  of  Arth  and  the  verdurous  borders  of  the  Lake,  and  then 
uncovering  its  deep  sea-green  waters,  which  reflected  the  lovely 
sailing  shadows  of  the  clouds  as  a  mirror. 

Now  the  church  bells  began  to  chime  under  this  body  of  mist, 
and  voices  from  the  invisible  villages,  mingled  with  the  tinkle  of 
sheep-bells,  and  the  various  stir  of  life  awakening  from  sleep, 
came  stilly  up  the  mountain.  And  now  some  of  the  mountain 
peaks  themselves  began  suddenly  to  be  touched  with  fleeces  of 
cloud,  as  if  smoking  with  incense  in  morning  worship.  Detach- 
ments of  mist  begin  also  to  rise  from  the  lakes  and  valleys, 
moving  from  the  main  body  up  into  the  air.  The  villages,  cha- 
lets, and  white  roads,  dotting  and  threading  the  vast  circumfer- 
ence of  landscape,  come  next  into  view.  And  now  on  the  Lake 
of  Zug  you  may  see  reflected  the  shadows  of  clouds  that  have 
risen  from  the  surface,  but  are  themselves  below  us. 

It  is  said  you  can  see  fourteen  lakes  from  the  place  where  we 
are  standing.  I  counted  at  least  twelve  last  evening,  before  the 
night-veil  of  the  mist  had  been  drawn  above  them,  but  this  morn- 
ing the  goings  on  in  the  heavens  have  been  too  beautiful  and 
grand  to  take  the  time  for  counting  them,  and  besides  they  are 


140  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxxi. 

too  much  enveloped  with  the  slow-retiring  fogs  to  detect  them. 
On  the  side  of  the  Righi  under  the  eastern  horizon  you  behold 
the  little  Lake  of  Lowertz,  with  the  ruins  of  the  village  of  Gol- 
dau,  destroyed  hy  the  slide  of  the  Rossberg,  and  you  trace  dis- 
tinctly the  path  of  the  destroying  avalanche,  the  vast  groove  of 
bare  rock,  where  the  mountain  separated  and  thundered  down 
the  vale.  A  little  beyond  are  the  beautiful  peaks  of  Schwytz 
called  the  Mitres. 

All  this  wondrous  panorama  is  before  us.  Whatever  side  we 
turn,  new  points  of  beauty  are  disclosed.  As  the  day  advances, 
every  image,  fully  defined,  draws  to  its  perfect  place  in  the  pic- 
ture. A  cloudless  noon,  with  its  still  solemnity,  would  make 
visible,  for  a  short  time,  every  height  and  depth,  every  lake, 
mountain,  town,  streamlet,  and  village,  that  the  eye  could  reach 
from  this  position,  and  then  would  pass  again  the  lovely  suc- 
cessive transitions  of  shade  deepening  into  shade,  and  colors  rich- 
lier  burning,  into  the  blaze  of  sun-set,  and  the  soft  melancholy 
twilight,  till  nothing  could  be  seen  from  our  high  position  but  the 
stars  in  heaven.  In  a  few  hours  we  have  witnessed,  as  on  a 
central  observatory,  what  the  Poet  Young  calls 


-"  the  astonishing  magnificence 


•  Of  unintelligent  creation," 

from  the  numerous  worlds  that  throng  the  firmament  at  midnight, 

"  where  depth,  height,  breadth 
Are  lost  in  their  extremes,  and  where  to  count 
The  thick  sown  glories  in  this  field  of  fire 
Perhaps  a  seraph's  computation  fails," 

to  the  beauty  and  sublimity  of  our  own  small  world,  revealed 
when  theirs  is  hidden,  in  the  break  of  dawn,  and  revealed  with 
such  an  array  of  morning  splendor,  that  not  even  Night  and 
the  Universe  of  stars  can  be  for  the  moment  a  more  entrancing 
spectacle ! 

And  for  whom  hath  God  arranged  all  this  ?  Not  for  the 
Angels  alone,  but  for  every  eye  that  looks  to  him  in  love,  for  the 
humblest  mind  and  heart,  that  can  look  abroad  and  say,  My 


CHAP,  xxxi.]  SUNRISE  ON  THE   RIGHT.  141 

Father  made  them  all !     He  made  them,  that  his  children  might 
love  him  in  them,  and  know  him  by  them. 

"  The  soul  of  man,  His  Face  designed  to  see, 
Who  gave  these  wonders  to  be  seen  by  man, 
Has  here  a  previous  scene  of  objects  great 
On  which  to  dwell ;  to  stretch  to  that  expanse 
Of  thought,  to  rise  to  that  exalted  height 
Of  admiration,  to  contract  that  awe, 
And  give  her  whole  capacities  that  strength, 
Which  best  may  qualify  for  final  joy. 
The  more  our  spirits  are  enlarged  on  earth 
The  deeper  draught  they  shall  receive  of  heaven. 

Thou,  who  didst  touch  the  lips  of  Jesse's  son, 
Rapt  in  sweet  contemplation  of  those  fires, 
And  set  his  harp  in  concert  with  the  spheres, 
Teach  me,  by  this  stupendous  scaffolding 
Creation's  golden  steps,  to  climb  to  Thee  !" 

YOUNG. 

Before  such  a  scene  how  ought  the  heart  to  expand  with  the 
love  of  God,  and  the  adoration  of  his  glory  !  Waken,  O  my 
soul,  to  morning  worship  with  the  whole  creation  around  thee, 
and  breathe  forth,  with  all  the  works  of  God,  the  breath  of  grati- 
tude and  praise.  What  a  scene  is  this !  How  beautiful,  how 
beautiful !  And  if  our  hearts  were  in  perfect  unison  with  it,  if 
there  were  within  us  a  spiritual  scenery,  the  work  of  divine 
grace,  as  fitting  as  this  material,  the  creation  of  divine  power, 
heaven  with  its  purity  and  blessedness  would  not  be  far  off  from 
every  one  of  us.  And  why  should  the  light  of  the  rising  sun 
kindle  earth  and  heaven  into  a  smile  so  transcendently  beautiful, 
and  our  souls  not  be  enkindled  in  like  manner  in  their  horizon 
of  spiritual  glory  ?  We  need  Divine  Grace  to  take  away  our 
blindness.  This  rosy  flame,  into  which  the  cold  snowy  moun- 
tain tops  seemed  suddenly  changed  by  the  sun  upon  them,  was  a 
symbol  of  what  takes  place  with  the  truths  of  the  Word  of  God, 
when  the  Spirit  breathes  upon  them,  and  brings  them  to  the  soul. 
Then  how  they  shine,  with  what  lovely  warmth  of  coloring,  with 
what  intense  exciting  brightness,  with  what  interpenetrating 
glory,  by  which  the  soul  itself  is  transfigured  and  raised  to 
heaven !  So  must  God  shine  into  our  hearts  to  give  us  the  light 


143  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.         [CHAP. 

of  the  knowledge  of  his  glory,  as  it  shines  in  the  face  of  Jesus 
Christ.  When  this  is  done,  then  all  things  are  filled  with  mean- 
ing and  love. 

And  this  whole  scene  of  Night  giving  place  to  Morning,  pour- 
ing  like  a  flood  over  the  wide  earth,  viewed  from  a  height  so 
commanding,  may  bring  forcibly  to  mind  the  glory  of  the  rising 
of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  upon  the  nations,  the  light  and  holi- 
ness of  the  gospel  poured  over  the  world  and  transfiguring  its 
tribes  and  institutions  with  blessedness.  From  their  post  of  ob- 
servation in  heaven,  methinks  Celestial  Intelligences  enjoy  some- 
thing such  a  view,  as  they  see  Christ's  kingdom  advancing,  the 
troops  of  Darkness  fleeing,  the  mists  of  Error  rolling  from  the 
earth,  the  shrines  of  idolatry  falling,  the  true  temples  of  God 
everywhere  rising,  nation  after  nation  coming  to  the  light,  the 
world  awakening  to  God's  praise  resounding.  From  every  clime 
they  come,  in  every  zone  they  kneel,  from  continents  and  islands, 
in  sun-burned  Ethiopia  and  ice-clad  Greenland,  Eastern  Java 
and  the  natives  of  the  farthest  West,  unfettered  Africa  and  China 
from  the  thraldom  of  her  gods. 

"  One  Lord,  one  Father  !     Error  has  no  place  ; 
That  creeping  pestilence  is  driven  away  ; 
The  breath  of  heaven  has  chased  it.     In  the  heart 
No  passion  touches  a  discordant  string. 
One  song  employs  all  nations,  and  all  cry 
Worthy  the  Lamb,  for  he  was  slain  for  us ! 
The  dwellers  in  the  vales  and  on  the  rocks 
Shout  to  each  other,  and  the  mountain  tops 
From  distant  mountains  catch  the  flying  joy, 
Till,  nation  after  nation  taught  the  strain, 
Earth  rolls  the  rapturous  Hosanna  round  !" 


CHAP,  xxxii.]         THE  ROSSBERG  AVALANCHE.  143 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

• 

Lucerne  to  Einsiedeln. — Dr.  Zay's  history  of  the  Rossberg  Avalanche 

WE  left  Lucerne  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  that  is,  myself 
and  an  English  clergyman,  whom  I  had  promised  at  Geneva  to 
meet  at  Lucerne  and  travel  with  him  into  Italy,  down  the  pass  of 
the  Splugen.  We  were  dropped  by  the  steamer  at  the  village  of 
Brunnen  in  the  Canton  of  Schwytz,  near  the  little  republic  of 
Gersau,  the  whole  of  which  occupied  one  village,  and  a  princi- 
pality of  a  few  acres.  The  old  town  of  Schwytz,  from  which 
the  country  of  Switzerland  takes  its  name,  a  town  of  old  heroic 
remembrances  and  valorous  men,  is  most  romantically  situated  at 
the  foot  of  those  curious  hierarchical  mountains  called  the  Mitres. 
We  entered  the  old  church,  looked  into  the  town-house  with  its 
interesting  antique  portraits,  of  real  ancestral  nobility,  passed  the 
Mitres,  and  the  Goldau  lake,  and  the  Rossberg  avalanche,  and 
wound  our  way  towards  the  curacy  of  Zwingle  and  the  Abbey 
of  Einsiedeln.  There  is  much  food  for  reflection,  all  the  way, 
as  well  as  much  natural  beauty  for  enjoyment.  A  few  mornings 
ago  we  were  overlooking  all  this  scene  from  the  summit  of  the 
Righi,  how  beautiful  !  But  is  there  one  spot  in  all  this  world  of 
ours,  where  the  thought  of  beauty  is  not  linked  sooner  or  later 
with  that  of  pain  and  death  ? 

No  man  can  pass  this  Rossberg  mountain  without  thinking  of 
the  dread  catastrophe  that  here  only  a  few  years  ago  overwhelmed 
in  so  vast  a  burial  three  or  four  whole  lovely  villages  at  once ; — 
one  of  the  most  terrible  natural  convulsions  in  all  the  history  of 
Switzerland.  Four  hundred  and  fifty-seven  persons  are  said  to 
have  perished  beneath  this  mighty  avalanche.  The  place  out  of 
which  it  broke  in  the  mountain  is  a  thousand  feet  in  breadth  by 
a  hundred  feet  deep,  and  this  falling  mass  extended  bodily  at 
least  three  miles  in  length.  It  shot  across  the  valley  with  the 


144  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxxn. 

swiftness  of  a  cannon-ball,  so  that  in  five  minutes  the  villages 
were  all  crushed  as  if  they  had  been  egg-shells,  or  the  mimic 
toys  of  children.  And  when  the  people  looked  towards  the  luxu- 
riant vale,  where  the  towns  had  lain  smiling  and  secure,  the  whole 
region  was  a  mass  of  smoking  ruins.  It  makes  one  think  of  the 
sight  that  met  the  eyes  of  Abraham,  when  "  he  got  up  early  in 
the  morning  to  the  place  where  he  stood  before  the  Lord,"  and  all 
the  country,  where  the  cities  of  the  plain  had  been,  was  as  the 
smoke  and  scurf  of  a  furnace. 

But  this  history  ought  not  to  be  related  in  any  other  language 
than  the  simple  and  powerful  narrative  of  Dr.  Zay,  of  the  neigh- 
boring village  of  Arth,  an  eye-witness  of  the  tremendous  specta- 
cle. I  shall  give  his  words,  even  though  they  may  be  familiar  to 
my  readers ;  a  paraphrase  would  not  be  half  so  interesting. 

"  The  summer  of  1806,"  says  he,  "  had  been  very  rainy,  and 
on  the  first  and  second  of  September  it  rained  incessantly.  New 
crevices  were  observed  in  the  flank  of  the  mountain,  a  sort  of 
cracking  noise  was  heard  internally,  stones  started  out  of  the 
ground,  detached  fragments  of  rocks  rolled  down  the  mountain ; 
at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  second  of  September,  a 
large  rock  became  loose,  and  in  falling  raised  a  cloud  of  black 
dust.  Toward  the  lower  part  of  the  mountain,  the  ground  seemed 
pressed  down  from  above  ;  and  when  a  stick  or  a  spade  was 
driven  in,  it  moved  of  itself.  A  man,  who  had  been  digging  in 
his  garden,  ran  away  from  fri'ght  at  these  extraordinary  appear- 
ances ;  soon  a  fissure,  larger  than  all  the  others,  was  observed ; 
insensibly  it  increased  ;  springs  of  water  ceased  all  at  once  to 
flow ;  the  pine-trees  of  the  forest  absolutely  reeled ;  birds  flew 
away  screaming.  A  few  minutes  before  five  o'clock,  the  symp. 
toms  of  some  mighty  catastrophe  became  still  stronger  ;  the  whole 
surface  of  the  mountain  seemed  to  glide  down,  but  so  slowly  as 
to  afford  time  to  the  inhabitants  to  go  away.  An  old  man,  who 
had  often  predicted  some  such  disaster,  was  quietly  smoking  his 
pipe,  when  told  by  a  young  man,  running  by,  that  the  mountain 
was,  in  the  act  of  falling ;  he  rose  and  looked  out,  but  came  into 
his  house  again,  saying  he  had  time  to  fill  another  pipe.  The 
young  man,  continuing  to  fly,  was  thrown  down  several  times, 


CHAP.  XXXIL]        STORY  OF  THE  AVALANCHE.  145 

and  escaped  with  difficulty ;  looking  back,  he  saw  the  house  car- 
ried  off  all  at  once. 

"  Another  inhabitant,  being  alarmed,  took  two  of  his  children 
and  ran  away  with  them,  calling  to  his  wife  to  follow  with  the 
third  ;  but  she  went  in  for  another,  who  still  remained  (Marianna, 
aged  five)  :  just  then,  Francisca  Ulrich,  their  servant,  was  cross- 
ing the  room,  with  this  Marianna,  whom  she  held  by  the  hand, 
and  saw  her  mistress ;  at  that  instant,  as  Francisca  afterwards 
said,  i  The  house  appeared  to  be  torn  from  its  foundation  (it  was 
of  wood),  and  spun  round  and  round  like  a  tetotum  •  I  was  some- 
times on  my  head,  sometimes  on  my  feet,  in  total  darkness,  and 
violently  separated  from  the  child.'  When  the  motion  stopped, 
she  found  herself  jammed  in  on  all  sides,  with  her  head  down- 
wards, much  bruised,  and  in  extreme  pain.  She  supposed  she 
was  buried  alive  at  a  great  depth  ;  with  much  difficulty  she  dis- 
engaged her  right  hand,  and  wiped  the  blood  from  her  eyes. 
Presently  she  heard  the  faint  moans  of  Marianna,  and  called  to 
her  by  her  name  ;  the  child  answered  that  she  was  on  her  back 
among  stones  and  bushes,  which  held  her  fast,  but  that  her  hands 
were  free,  and  that  she  saw  the  light,  and  even  something  green. 
She  asked  whether  people  would  not  soon  come  to  take  them  out. 
Francisca  answered  that  it  was  the  day  of  judgment,  and  that  no 
one  was  left  to  help  them,  but  that  they  would  be  released  by 
death,  and  be  happy  in  heaven.  They  prayed  together.  At  last 
Francisca's  ear  was  struck  by  the  sound  of  a  bell,  which  she 
knew  to  be  that  of  Steinenberg :  then  seven  o'clock  struck  in 
another  village,  and  she  began  to  hope  there  were  still  living  be- 
ings, and  endeavored  to  comfort  the  child.  The  poor  little  girl 
was  at  first  clamorous  for  her  supper,  but  her  cries  soon  became 
fainter,  and  at  last  quite  died  away.  Francisca,  still  with  her 
head  downwards,  and  surrounded  with  damp  earth,  experienced 
a  sense  of  cold  in  her  feet  almost  insupportable.  After  prodigious 
efforts,  sho  succeeded  in  disengaging  her  legs,  and  thinks  this 
saved  her  life.  Many  hours  had  passed  in  this  situation,  when 
she  again  heard  the  voice  of  Marianna,  who  had  been  asleep,  and 
now  renewed  her  lamentations.  In  the  meantime,  the  unfortu- 
nate father,  who,  with  much  difficulty,  had  saved  himself  and  two 
qhildren,  wandered  about  till  daylight,  when  he  came  among  the 

PART   II.  11 


146  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  xxxn. 

ruins  to  look  for  the  rest  of  his  family.  He  soon  discovered  his 
wife,  by  a  foot  which  appeared  above  ground  :  she  was  dead,  with 
a  child  in  her  arms.  His  cries,  and  the  noise  he  made  in  dig- 
ging, were  heard  by  Marian na,  who  called  out.  She  was  extri- 
cated with  a  broken  thigh,  and,  saying  that  Francisca  was  not  far 
off,  a  farther  search  led  to  her  release  also,  but  in  such  a  state 
that  her  life  was  despaired  of:  she  was  blind  for  some  days,  and 
remained  subject  to  convulsive  fits  of  terror.  It  appeared  that 
the  house,  or  themselves  at  least,  had  been  carried  down  about 
one  thousand  five  hundred  feet  from  where  it  stood  before. 

"  In  another  place,  a  child  two  years  old  was  found  unhurt, 
lying  on  its  straw  mattress  upon  the  mud,  without  any  vestige  of 
the  house  from  which  he  had  been  separated.  Such  a  mass  of 
earth  and  stones  rushed  at  once  into  the  Lake  of  Lowertz,  although 
five  miles  distant,  that  one  end  of  it  was  filled  up,  and  a  prodigious 
wave  passing  completely  over  the  island  of  Schwanau,  seventy 
feet  above  the  usual  level  of  the  water,  overwhelmed  the  opposite 
shore,  and,  as  it  returned,  swept  away  into  the  lake  many  houses 
with  their  inhabitants.  The  village  of  Seewen,  situated  at  the 
farther  end,  was  inundated,  and  some  houses  washed  away,  and 
the  flood  carried  live  fish  into  the  village  of  Steinen.  The  cha- 
pel of  Olten,  built  of  wood,  was  found  half  a  league  from  the 
place  it  had  previously  occupied,  and  many  large  blocks  of  stone 
completely  changed  their  position. 

"  The  most  considerable  of  the  villages  overwhelmed  in  the 
vale  of  Arth  was  Goldau,  and  its  name  is  now  affixed  to  the 
whole  melancholy  story  and  place.  I  shall  relate  only  one  more 
incident : — A  party  of  eleven  travellers  from  Berne,  belonging  to 
the  most  distinguished  families  there,  arrived  at  Arth  on  the 
second  of  September,  and  set  off  on  foot  for  the  Righi  a  few 
minutes  before  the  catastrophe.  Seven  of  them  had  got  about 
two  hundred  yards  a-head, — the  other  four  saw  them  entering  the 
village  of  Goldau,  and  one  of  the  latter,  Mr.  R.  Jenner,  pointing 
out  to  the  rest  the  summit  of  the  Rossberg  (full  four  miles  off  in 
a  straight  line),  where  some  strange  commotion  seemed  taking 
place,  which  they  themselves  (the  four  behind)  were  observing 
with  a  telescope,  and  had  entered  into  conversation  on  the  subject 
with  some  strangers  just  come  up ;  when,  all  at  once,  a  flight  of 


CHAP,  xxxn.]  VILLAGE  OF  GOLDAU.  147 

stones,  like  cannon-balls,  traversed  the  air  above  their  heads  ;  a 
cloud  of  thick  dust  obscured  the  valley ;  a  frightful  noise  was 
heard.  They  fled  !  As  soon  as  the  obscurity  was  so  far  dis- 
sipated as  to  make  objects  discernible,  they  sought  their  friends, 
but  the  village  of  Goldau  had  disappeared  under  a  heap  of  stones 
and  rubbish  one  hundred  feet  in  height,  and  the  whole  valley  pre- 
sented nothing  but  a  perfect  chaos  !  Of  the  unfortunate  survivors, 
one  lost  a  wife  to  whom  he  was  just  married,  one  a  son,  a  third 
the  two  pupils  under  his  care :  all  researches  to  discover  their 
remains  were,  and  have  ever  since  been,  fruitless.  Nothing  is 
left  of  Goldau  but  the  bell  which  hung  in  its  steeple,  and  which 
was  found  about  a  mile  off.  With  the  rocks  torrents  of  mud 
came  down,  acting  as  rollers  ;  but  they  took  a  different  direction 
when  in  the  valley,  the  mud  following  the  slope  of  the  ground 
towards  the  lake  of  Lowertz,  while  the  rocks,  preserving  a 
straight  course,  glanced  across  the  valley  towards  the  Righi. 
The  rocks  above,  moving  much  faster  than  those  near  the  ground, 
went  farther,  and  ascended  even  a  great  way  up  the  Righi :  its 
base  is  covered  with  large  blocks  carried  to  an  incredible  height, 
and  by  which  trees  were  mowed  down^  as  they  might  have  been 
by  cannon." 

The  people  of  Goldau  are  said  to  have  possessed  such  interest- 
ing qualities  of  person  and  manners,  such  purity  and  simplicity 
of  domestic  life,  as  well  corresponded  with  the  loveliness  of  their 
native  village  and  its  surrounding  scenery.  How  strange  and 
awful  seems  under  such  circumstances  the  transition  from  Time 
into  Eternity  !  No  thought  was  there  of  death,  no  effort  of  pre- 
paration, no  moment  of  prayer,  but  a  swift,  dread  crash,  a  wild 
surprise,  and  those  overtaken  souls  were  in  the  world  of  spirits  ! 
What  a  lesson  for  the  living  !  Yet  its  power  is  all  taken  away, 
in  all  probability,  with  the  race  remaining,  and  with  the  crowd  of 
visitors  annually  passing,  its  power  as  a  lesson  of  sudden  death, 
by  the  mere  fact  that  death  under  the  same  circumstances  is  not 
likely  to  be  the  lot  of  those  now  living.  No,  answers  the  lesson, 
not  perhaps  under  the  same  circumstances ;  but  the  solemnity  of 
the  event  is  not  in  its  circumstances,  and  your  own  death  may  be 
as  sudden,  though  you  may  not  be  buried  under  a  mountain.  It 
is  sudden  death,  not  the  being  crushed  by  an  avalanche,  that  is 


148  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP,  xxxii. 

so  awful.  Wherefore,  as  you  stand  upon  this  great  grave,  and 
moralize  over  it,  remembering  perhaps  the  prayer,  From  sudden 
death,  O  God,  deliver  us  ! — pray  also  that  you  may  be  prepared 
for  sudden  death,  for  it  may  come  to  you  at  your  own  fireside. 
Endeavor,  by  Christ's  grace,  so  to  live,  that  death  cannot  be  sud- 
den to  you,  whenever  or  however  he  may  come. 

Those  are  most  striking  and  appropriate  lines  of  an  old  poet, 
telling  us  that  though  God  has  promised  grace  for  repentance,  he 
has  not  promised  time,  but  always  says  NOW.  Good  stanzas  they 
are  for  our  pilgrimage,  whether  we  be  at  home  or  abroad,  a  pre- 
cious word  of  wisdom. 

"  Early  set  forth  on  thine  eternal  race  ; 
The  ascent  is  steep  and  craggy  ;  thou  must  climb 
God  at  all  times  has  promised  sinners  GRACE 
If  they  repent; — but  He  ne'er  promised  TIME. 

Cheat  not  thyself,  as  most,  who  then  prepare 
For  Death,  when  life  is  almost  turned  to  fume  : 
One  thief  was  saved,  that  no  man  need  despair, 
And  but  one  thief,  that  no  one  might  presume." 


CHAP,  xxxiii.]  BATTLE  OF  MORGARTEN.  149 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Morgarten,  Sempach,  and  Arnold  of  Winkelried. 

ON  our  way  from  Schwytz  to  Einsiedeln,  a  short  romantic 
walk  from  the  main  road,  lies  the  battle-field  of  Morgarten,  on 
the  borders  of  the  little  Lake  of  Egeri,  a  spot  next  after  Sempach 
famous  in  the  heroic  ages  of  Swiss  history.  We  have  passed  the 
scene  of  a  great  convulsion  of  nature,  a  mountain  tumbling  from 
its  base,  and  "  rocking  its  Alpine  brethren;"  but  what  was  this, 
or  a  hundred  such  avalanches,  to  the  war  of  human  passion  ?  Is 
it  not  strange  that  we  stand  over  the  ruins  of  a  volcano,  on  the 
grave  of  buried  cities,  or  where  a  mountain  has  fallen  on  a  ham- 
let, and  think  so  much  of  the  loss  of  life,  and  the  sorrow  and 
pain  and  dread  of  sudden  death,  and  the  universal  mourning  of 
survivors,  but  can  visit  a  battle-field,  where  death  revelled  with 
infinitely  more  of  horror  and  fury,  and  think  of  nothing  but  glory  ! 
This  avalanche  of  men  at  Morgarten  was  the  death  of  thousands, 
whirled  in  a  storm  of  passion  out  of  life,  with  desolating  anguish 
and  ruin  to  thousands  more ;  but  men  gaze  at  the  scene  of  the 
conflict,  and  think  only  of  the  heroism  of  the  living  avalanche. 

True,  it  was  a  battle  against  tyranny,  and  William  Tell  and 
Walter  Furst  are  said  to  have  been  there  ;  so,  no  wonder  that 
the  Swiss  fought  so  terribly ;  but  still  it  was  war,  savage,  fierce, 
remorseless  war.  And  war  for  ages  was  almost  the  habitual 
school  of  the  Swiss  Cantons.  This  great  victory  may  well  be 
called  the  Marathon  of  Swiss  history,  the  conquest  of  twenty 
thousand  Austrians  by  a  band  of  only  thirteen  hundred  men  of 
the  mountains,  a  rushing,  crashing  ruin  like  a  whirlwind.  It 
took  place  in  the  year  1315.  A  little  commemorative  chapel 
stands  above  the  lake,  overhung  by  a  rocky  hill,  from  which  the 
scene  is  all  before  you  ;  but  it  is  very  difficult  to  conceive  the 
position  of  the  armies.  The  thirteen  hundred  hung  like  a  small 
thunder-cloud  on  the  heights  above  the  lake,  and  the  twenty  thou- 


150  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.          [CHAP.  xxxm. 

sand  were  mailed  and  crowded  along  the  narrow  strand  below. 
The  men  of  Schwytz  were  the  leaders  of  the  patriots,  joined 
with  four  hundred  from  Uri,  and  three  hundred  from  Unterwald- 
en,  and  after  this  day,  the  name  of  Swiss  designated  the  confede- 
racy and  the  country — SCHWYTZER-LAND. 

Seventy-one  years  afterwards,  not  far  from  the  same  region,  on 
the  borders  of  the  Lake  of  Sempach,  against  the  same  Austrian 
enemies,  one  man,  Arnold  of  Winkelried,  gained  a  like  victory 
in  1386,  by  his  own  self-devotion,  at  the  head  of  about  fourteen 
hundred  men.  The  poet  Wordsworth  has  finely  connected  his 
memory  with  Tell's,  at  the  shrine  of  patriotism  and  religion. 

"  Thither,  in  time  of  adverse  shocks, 
Of  fainting  hopes  and  backward  wills, 
Did  mighty  Tell  repair  of  old, — 
A  Hero  cast  in  Nature's  mould, 
Deliverer  of  the  steadfast  rocks, 
And  of  the  ancient  hills  ! 

He  too,  of  battle  martyrs  chief ! 
Who,  to  recall  his  daunted  peers, 
For  victory  shaped  an  open  space, 
By  gathering  with  a  wide  embrace, 
Into  his  single  heart,  a  sheaf 
Of  fatal  Austrian  spears  !" 

It  was  indeed  an  amazing  act  of  self-sacrificing  courage,  that 
has  no  parallel  whatever  in  the  history  of  battles.  We  will  let 
Zschokke  tell  the  story  in  prose,  and  then  proceed  upon  our  in- 
terrupted pilgrimage.  "  It  was  the  season  of  harvest,  when  the 
sun  darted  his  beams  with  great  ardor.  After  a  short  prostration 
in  prayer,  the  Swiss  arose ;  their  numbers  were  four  hundred 
men  from  Lucerne,  nine  hundred  from  the  Waldstetten,  and  about 
a  hundred  from  Glaris  and  other  places.  Uniting  now  their 
forces,  they  precipitated  themselves  with  great  impetuosity  upon 
the  impregnable  Austrian  phalanx :  but  not  a  man  yielded  to  the 
shock.  The  Swiss  fell  one  after  another ;  numbers  lay  bleeding 
on  the  ground  ;  their  whole  force  began  to  waver,  when  suddenly 
a  voice  like  thunder  exclaimed  :  *  I  will  open  a  passage  to  free- 
dom ;  faithful  and  beloved  confederates,  protect  only  my  wife  and 
children !'  These  words  of  Arnold  Struthan  of  Winkelried,  a 


CHAP,  xxxm.]  ARNOLD  OF  WINKELRIED.  151 

knight  of  Unterwalden,  were  no  sooner  uttered,  than  he  seized 
with  loth  arms  as  many  of  the  enemy's  spears  as  he  was  able,  bu- 
ried them  in  his  body,  and  sank  to  the  ground,  while  the  confede- 
rates rushed  forward  through  the  breach  over  his  corpse." 
Nothing  now  could  withstand  the  torrent ;  helmets,  arms,  all, 
were  demolished  by  the  blows  of  their  clubs.  Hundreds  of 
mailed  warriors  and  nobles  went  down,  and  Duke  Leopold  of 
Austria  fell  lifeless.  Thousands  perished  in  retreat,  and  the  little 
band  remained  victorious  and  free,  to  bless  the  devotion  of  Arnold 
of  Winkelried,  and  to  cherish  the  legacy  of  his  patriotism,  and 
the  fireside  of  his  wife  and  children.  Nothing  like  this  is  to  be 
found  either  in  ancient  or  modern  history,  and  rightly  pondered, 
what  a  lesson  of  self-sacrifice  it  reads  to  the  patriot  and  the  Chris- 
tian ! 


152  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.          [CHAP,  xxxiv, 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Pilgrimage  of  Einsiedeln  and  worship  of  the  Virgin. 

EINSIEDELN  constitutes  the  very  head-quarters  of  the  worship  of 
the  Virgin  Mary.  All  day  long,  if  you  come  into  the  region  as 
we  did,  nigh  about  the  season  for  the  great  annual  worshipping 
festival,  or  virginal  levee,  you  will  meet  pilgrims  on  the  roads  in 
every  direction,  hurrying  thither  or  returning  from  the  shrine ; 
old  men  and  robust  peasants,  maidens  and  little  children,  troops 
of  old  women  telling  their  beads  and  repeating  their  prayers,  as 
they  trarnp  along  the  wet  road,  as  if  praying  for  a  wager.  What 
an  intense,  haggard  zeal  is  depicted  in  some  of  their  counte- 
nances ;  their  lips  move,  and  they  do  not  look  at  you,  but  hurry 
on  undistracted  from  their  great  work,  for  they  probably  have  a 
certain  number  of  Aves  to  repeat,  or  perhaps  a  bead  roll  of 
prayers  so  constructed,  that  if  they  miss  one,  they  must  go  over 
the  whole  again  from  the  beginning. 

And  is  this  religion  ?  Is  it  taught  for  religion  by  beings  who 
have  heard  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  and  of 
the  character  of  God  ?  Is  this  the  influence  of  the  Virgin  Mary 
upon  the  soul  ?  Do  men  expect  thus  to  climb  to  heaven  ?  Pass 
on  to  the  great  building,  the  spacious  Temple  of  the  Virgin,  and 
you  will  see.  It  is  a  vast  and  gaudy  church  within,  a  stately 
structure  without,  enshrining  a  black  image  of  the  Virgin,  almost 
as  black  as  ebony,  which  some  believe  came  miraculously  from 
heaven,  as  fully  as  ever  the  Ephesians  believed  in  the  heaven- 
descended  character  of  the  image  of  their  great  goddess  Diana. 
This  singular  shrine  is  frequented  by  multitudes  of  penance- 
doing  people,  who  go  thither  at  the  impulse  of  their  anxious  half- 
awakened  consciences,  under  guidance  of  their  priests,  to  de- 
posit their  offerings,  perform  their  prayers,  and  quiet  their  souls 
with  the  hope,  by  Mary's  help,  of  escaping  unscathed  both  Hell 
and  Purgatory. 


CHAP,  xxxiv.]        PILGRIMAGE  OF  EINSIEDELN.  153 

The  multitude  of  pilgrims  is  sometimes  prodigious.  When 
the  anniversary  festival  of  the  miraculous  consecration  of  the 
shrine  comes  on  the  Sabbath,  it  lasts  fifteen  days,  and  is  a  great 
collective  jubilee.  From  every  quarter  the  pilgrims  flock  as  to 
the  opened  gate  of  Heaven.  Here  they  may  have  pleasures  by 
the  way,  commuted  for  by  light  penances,  or  by  the  pilgrimage 
itself,  indulgences  for  future  pleasure,  and  pardons,  unlimited,  for 
sin.  From  the  year  1820  to  1840,  the  number  of  pilgrims  an- 
nually has  been  at  an  average  of  more  than  150,000.  This  vast 
concourse  of  strangers  keeps  the  town  and  parish  of  Einsiedeln 
in  a  thriving  business  of  innkeeping,  merchandise,  and  various 
light  manufactures  for  the  "  Star  of  the  Sea,"  the  "  Queen  of 
Heaven."  As  of  old  the  Ephesians  made  silver  shrines  for 
Diana,  and  by  her  worship  got  their  own  wealth,  so  the  Einsie- 
delners  make  images,  shrines,  and  pictures  for  Mary,  and  by  this 
craft  maintain  a  thrifty  state.  Around  the  great  church  in  front 
and  on  each  side,  as  well  as  in  the  village,  are  rows  of  stalls  or 
shops  for  the  sale  of  books,  beads,  pictures,  images,  and  a  thou- 
sand knicknacks  in  honor  of  the  Virgin,  and  as  a  portable  Me- 
moria  Technica  of  her  worship.  The  Pope's  letter  in  her  behalf 
makes  appropriate  display  among  all  these  treasures,  and  as  it 
were  fixes  their  value,  just  as  the  Pontifical  stamp  coins  money. 
It  makes  one's  heart  ache  to  see  the  mournful  superstition  of  the 
people.  Indeed  the  whole  Establishment  of  the  Virgin  in  the 
Romish  worship  is  one  of  the  most  prodigious  transactions  of 
spiritual  fraud,  one  of  the  vastest  pieces  of  forgery  and  specula- 
tion in  the  history  of  our  race.  It  is  a  great  South  Sea  bubble 
of  religious  superstition,  by  which  thousands  make  a  fortune  in 
this  world,  but  millions  make  shipwreck  of  their  souls  for  ever. 

The  Pope  and  the  Priesthood  are  joint  stockholders  of  a  great 
bank  in  Heaven,  which  they  have  reared  on  false  capital,  and 
of  which  they  have  appointed  Mary  the  supreme  and  perpetual 
Directress.  So  the  Pope  and  the  Priests  issue  their  bills  of  credit 
on  Mary,  and  for  the  people  the  whole  concern  is  turned  into  a 
sort  of  savings  bank,  where  believers  deposit  their  Ave  Marias, 
their  pilgrimages,  their  penances,  their  orisons  and  acts  of  grace, 
receiving  now,  for  convenience  in  this  world,  drafts  from  the 
Pope,  and  expecting  to  receive  their  whole  reversionary  fortune 


154  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP,  xxxiv. 

from  Mary  in  Paradise.  If  this  be  not  as  sheer,  pure,  unsophis- 
ticated a  form  of  paganism,  as  the  annals  of  Heathen  Mythology 
ever  disclosed  or  perfected,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  know  what  consti- 
tutes paganism.  The  artful  mixture  of  the  Gospel  scheme  of 
redemption,  and  reference  to  it,  in  this  Marianic  system,  makes 
it,  if  not  a  stronger  poison,  a  far  more  subtle  and  dangerous  de- 
lusion for  the  mind. 

The  Romish  scheme  as  here  demonstrated  is  a  system  of  me- 
diators and  courts  of  appeal,  which  puts  the  soul  as  far  as  possible 
from  the  Great  Mediator,  and  prevents  all  direct  access  to  the 
fountain  of  a  Saviour's  blood.  Here  we  have  the  Pope  accrediting 
the  saints,  the  saints  interceding  with  Mary,  Mary  interceding 
with  Christ.  The  system  in  general,  and  Einsiedeln  in  particular, 
with  the  legendary  literature  and  litanies  connected  with  it,  con- 
stitutes a  great  development  of  the  common  faith  and  literature 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  idea  of  which,  examined  not  in  the  com- 
mon mind,  but  only  in  a  few  great  intellects,  has  been  in  some 
quarters  so  applauded  even  by  professed  Protestants.  Ages  of 
Faith,  forsooth,  where  true  faith  was  rendered  almost  impossible, 
and  all  the  life  of  the  soul  was  one  vast  superstition ! 

In  front  of  the  great  Einsiedeln  Church  there  is  a  fountain, 
with  fourteen  compartments  or  jets,  at  one  of  which  the  common 
people  say  and  believe  our  Saviour  drank,  though  when,  or  how, 
or  by  what  possibility,  it  would  puzzle  the  staunchest  Judoeus 
Apellas  to  tell.  If  this  place  were  Sychar,  nigh  to  the  parcel  of 
ground  which  Jacob  gave  to  his  son  Joseph,  or  even  if  Einsiedeln 
were  on  the  way  to  Egypt  from  the  Holy  Land,  such  a  legend 
were  more  possibly  accountable  and  admissible  ;  but  here  in  the 
Alpine  Mountains,  on  the  way  from  Schwytz  to  Zurich,  no  man 
can  imagine  how  such  a  tradition  came  about.  And  yet  the  poor 
people  believe  it.  I  saw  a  peasant  with  the  utmost  gravity  and 
reverence  taking  fourteen  drinks  in  succession,  in  order  that  he 
might  be  sure  he  had  got  the  right  one  ;  and  probably  all  the 
more  ignorant  pilgrims  do  the  same.  Simultaneously  with  him, 
a  flock  of  geese  were  drinking  round  the  fountain,  but  with  much 
more  wit,  to  save  the  trouble  of  going  the  circuit,  they  dipped 
their  splashing  bill-cups  in  the  reservoir  below,  into  which  all  the 


CHAP,  xxxiv.]     SUPERSTITIONS  OF  THE  VIRGIN.  155 

fourteen  jets  pour  their  streams  together,  being  sure  that  the  con- 
tents of  the  sacred  one  must  necessarily  be  there  also. 

And  do  you  really  think  that  a  goose  has  so  much  sense  ?  Do 
you  think  a  man  can  have  so  much  folly  ?  I  would  answer : 
Which  ought  to  be  the  greatest  marvel,  that  a  goose  should  con- 
clude, since  all  the  jets  fall  into  the  pool,  that  there  can  be  no  one 
jet,  the  water  of  which  is  not  there,  or  that  a  man  should  have  so 
much  sad  and  blind  credulity,  as  to  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  once 
drank  there,  and  that  if  he  drinks  at  the  same  jet,  his  soul  will  be 
benefited  ?  Which,  I  ask,  ought  to  be  the  greatest  marvel  ?  Is  it 
not  a  folly  almost  incredible,  almost  equal  to  the  mad  enthusiasm 
of  the  tunic- worshippers  at  Treves,  Holy  Coat,  pray  for  us ! 
And  what  is  to  be  said  of  a  religion,  which,  instead  of  endeavor- 
ing to  cure  people  of  their  ignorance,  just  takes  advantage  of  it, 
enshrining  and  maintaining  in  state  every  absurd  phantasm  that 
a  frightened  superstitious  brain  can  coin  ?  It  is  the  veriest 
trickery,  worthy  of  a  Turkish  Santon,  a  religious  jugglery,  not 
half  so  respectable  as  that  of  Jannes  and  Jambres,  to  cajole  the 
common  uneducated  mind  in  this  manner.  And  it  passes  one's 
comprehension  how  educated  men,  in  other  respects  upright  and 
honest,  can  connive  at  the  cherishing  of  such  lunacies  among 
the  people. 

It  is  not  merely  the  nature  of  these  things  as  a  curious  system 
of  superstitions  that  we  wish  to  look  at.  The  philosophic  travel- 
ler desires  to  observe,  and  is  bound  to  observe,  their  effect  upon 
the  character  of  the  people,  the  manner  in  which  they  take  hold 
of  the  mind,  the  sort  of  atmosphere  which  they  form  around  the 
common  heart  and  life  of  the  multitude.  This  is  one  of  the 
most  curious  and  instructive  investigations  in  all  a  man's  jour- 
neyings  in  Europe,  especially  when  he  comes  upon  an  enclosure 
into  which  the  light  and  influences  of  the  Reformation  have 
never  penetrated,  and  where  Romanism,  not  having  come  in 
contact  with  systems  or  controversies,  that  might  shake  the  faith 
of  its  votaries,  may  be  sounded  in  its  depths  in  the  souls  invested 
with  it.  There  is  too  much  of  a  disposition  to  set  down  a  Bro- 
testant  Traveller's  notes  on  the  Romish  system  as  he  sees  it,  to 
the  score  of  bigotry  or  religious  prejudice.  This  is  both  unfair 
and  unwise,  for  it  tends  to  make  travellers  neglectful  of  observing 


156  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.        [CHAP,  xxxiv. 

the  workings  of  foreign  religious  systems,  or  restricted  and  un- 
candid  in  giving  their  impressions  to  the  public.  There  is  nothing 
that  a  traveller  ought  to  watch  more  closely,  or  report  more  fully 
and  fairly,  than  the  nature  of  these  two  things,  religion  and  edu- 
cation, among  the  people  where  he  journeys.  What  should  we 
say,  if  M.  De  Tocqueville  in  writing  of  us  in  America,  had  ab- 
stained from  all  notices  and  remarks  on  our  religious  system, 
because  this  would  have  rendered  his  book  obnoxious  to  some, 
and  distasteful  to  Others,  and  might  have  injured  its  popularity 
and  acceptableness  ?  A  man  travels  in  Europe  blindfold,  who 
either  does  not  observe,  or  neglects  to  record,  the  workings  of 
the  great  religious  system,  or  who  sees  it,  not  in  its  effects  on  the 
whole  character  of  the  people  or  on  common  minds,  but  only  in 
its  festival  ceremonies  in  gorgeous  cathedrals.  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  many  persons  look  upon  Romanism  only  with  the  outward 
eye,  and  only  in  its  outward  observances,  without  attempting  to 
.race  its  progress  and  its  influence  on  the  mind  and  in  the  heart. 

I  purchased  and  brought  away  with  me  several  of  the  little 
images  of  the  Virgin,  which  arc  sold  in  countless  quantities  for 
the  use  of  worshippers.  They  look  very  much  like  the  portable 
images  of  the  household  gods  of  Egypt,  which  I  obtained  several 
years  ago  while  travelling  in  that  country.  They  may  lie  on 
the  same  shelf  in  a  man's  cabinet  of  curiosities.  And  what  a 
curious  concatenation,  after  four  thousand  years,  which  brings 
the  idolatry  of  the  earliest  pagan  system,  and  that  of  the  pro- 
fessedly Christian  system,  at  the  two  extremes,  so  singularly 
together  !  Looking  at  these  two  sets  of  images,  which  a  man 
may  carry  side  by  side  in  his  trousers  pocket,  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  there  was  one  particle  more  or  less  of  superstition 
and  idolatry  in  the  use  of  the  one  than  of  the  other.  For  a  poor 
peasant  now  may  be  as  complete  and  unconscious  an  idolater  of 
his  "  Star  of  the  Sea,"  with  the  rude  image  which  he  carries  in 
his  pocket,  or  about  his  neck,  as  the  ancient  Egyptian  peasant 
ever  was  of  his  Isis  or  Osiris.  Indeed,  the  idolatry,  whatever  it 
be,  which  comes  after  Christianity,  must,  in  some  respects,  be 
worse  than  that  which  preceded  it. 

I  gathered  likewise  several  of  the  little  tracts  issued  at  Ein- 
siedeln  concerning  the  Virgin,  the  Shrine  and  the  pilgrimage, 


CHAP,  xxxiv.]  IMAGES  AND  TRACTS.  157 

constituting  the  catechisms  of  the  people,  and  revealing,  better 
than  anything  else,  the  water- courses,  so  to  speak,  of  the  supersti- 
tion in  their  hearts.  One  of  these  consists  of  Litanies  for  the 
invocation  of  the  Virgin,  with  an  incredible  number  and  repeti- 
tion of  her  titles,  and  accompanying  prayers  and  supplications 
to  her  in  all  hours  and  circumstances  of  danger  and  distress, 
from  the  first  moment  of  temptation,  to  the  hour  of  death  and 
the  day  of  judgment,  with  a  depth  of  earnestness  and  even 
anguish  of  soul,  that  exhausts  all  the  religious  sentiment  of  our 
fallen  nature.  "  O  Virgin  Mother  of  God !  in  all  our  pains  and  ~ 
tribulations  come  to  our  aid,  and  we  will  love  and  bless  you  to 
all  eternity.  Amen." 

Another  of  these  tracts  consists  of  an  ancient  song  upon  the 
miraculous  dedication  of  the  Holy  Chapel  of  the  Virgin,  which 
is  said  to  have  been  visibly  consecrated  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
in  honor  of  his  most  holy  Mother,  the  fourteenth  of  September, 
of  the  year  948.  To  this  is  added  a  long  prayer  to  be  said  be- 
fore the  holy  Chapel  or  the  Holy  Image  of  Our  Lady,  and  a 
shorter  prayer  to  be  said  before  a  portable  image,  by  those  who 
cannot  serve  the  Virgin  at  her  grand  altar  at  Einsiedeln,  for 
which  last  prayer  two  hundred  days'  indulgence  are  gained  by 
gift  of  the  Pope.  Three  paler  nosier s  and  three  Ave  Marias 
answer  instead  of  this  prayer  for  those  who  do  not  know  how  to 
read.  Then  follows  a  prayer  to  Saint  Meinrad,  the  first  wor- 
shipper of  the  image,  and  a  martyr  in  the  Chapel,  addressed  in 
the  prayer  as  the  mignon  or  dear  one  of  Mary.  Saint  Meinrad 
is  called  upon  to  intercede  with  the  "  Almighty  Mother,"  and  to 
obtain  for  devout  penitents  the  pardon  of  their  sins,  and  the  pre- 
servation of  their  bodies  from  all  dangers  and  their  souls  from 
damnation.  In  the  supplication  to  the  Virgin  the  soul  is  repre- 
sented as  fleeing  from  the  wrath  of  God,  to  be  protected  by  her  in 
the  day  of  judgment ;  and  the  sinner  renders  up  his  last  sigh  into 
her  hands,  that  his  soul  may  praise  her  for  ever  in  a  blessed 
eternity. 

O  wide  and  sad  and  powerful  delusion!  To  all  this  variety 
of  expedients,  to  all  these  successive  ranks  of  spiritual  lawyers, 
men  run  with  costly  fees  in  their  hands,  rather  than  straight  to 
Christ !  All  this  stately  apparatus  of  ages,  altars  and  images 


158  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.         [CHAP,  xxxiv. 

with  men  adoring  them,  crosses  on  the  garments,  crosses  about 
the  neck,  crosses  by  the  road-side,  and  pilgrims  kneeling  at  them, 
while  the  Lamb  of  God,  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world 
stands  by  unnoticed,  and  the  voice,  "  Come  unto  me  !"  is  never 
heard. 

It  is  a  beautiful,  though  quaint  gem  of  rude  poetry,  by  which 
George  Herbert  has  illustrated  the  difference  between  the  vain 
and  the  true  search  after  Peace.  If  any  of  my  readers  are  tired 
of  the  Pilgrimage  to  Einsiedeln,  they  may  have  something 
sweeter  to  dwell  upon  in  Herbert's  lines. 

"  Sweet  Peace,  where  dost  thou  dwell  ?     I  humbly  crave 

Let  me  once  know. 
I  sought  thee  in  a  secret  cave, 

And  asked  if  Peace  were  there, 
A  hollow  wind  did  seem  to  answer,  No ; 
Go,  seek  elsewhere. 

I  did  ;  and  going,  did  a  rainbow  note  : 

Surely,  thought  I, 
This  is  the  lace  of  Peace's  coat : 

I  will  search  out  the  matter  : 
But  while  I  looked,  the  clouds  immediately 

Did  break  and  scatter. 

Then  went  I  to  a  garden,  and  did  spy 

A  gallant  flower, 
The  Crown  Imperial :  Sure,  said  I, 

Peace  at  the  root  must  dwell ; 
But  when  I  digged,  I  saw  a  worm  devour 

What  showed  so  well. 

At  length  I  met  a  reverend  good  old  man  : 

Whom  when  for  Peace 
I  did  demand,  he  thus  began  : 

There  was  a  Prince  of  old 
In  Salem  dwelt,  who  lived  with  good  increase 

Of  flock  and  fold. 

He  sweetly  lived ;  yet  sweetness  did  not  save 

His  life  from  foes ; 
But  after  death,  out  of  his  grave 

There  sprang  twelve  stalks  of  wheat ; 
Which  many  wondering  at,  got  some  of  those 

To  plant  and  set. 


CHAP,  xxxiv.]  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE.  159 

It  prospered  strangely,  and  did  soon  disperse 

Through  all  the  earth  : 
For  they  that  taste  it  do  rehearse 

What  virtue  lie  therein ; 
A  secret  virtue,  bringing  Peace  and  Mirth 

By  flight  of  sin. 

Take  of  this  grain,  which  in  my  garden  grows, 

And  grows  for  you  : 
Make  bread  of  it ;  and  that  repose 

And  Peace,  which  everywhere 
With  so  much  earnestness  you  do  pursue, 

Is  only  there, 
The  Bread  of  Life,  for  ever  fresh  and  fair." 


160  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP  xxxv 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

Zurich  and  Zwingle. — Banishment  of  Protestants  from  Locarno. 

THE  Stork  Inns  !  I  know  not  why  the  hotels  should  be  likened 
to  such  fowl  as  the  Stork,  the  Vulture,  and  others  of  that  ilk, 
unless  it  be  on  account  of  their  long  bills.  Such  as  these  are, 
however,  somewhat  favorite  appellations  for  the  inns  of  Germany 
and  Switzerland,  and  a  tired  traveller  may  find  himself  very 
comfortable  in  their  hospitalities,  not  reckoning  without  his  host. 
A  man  may  spend  delightfully  at  Zurich  much  more  time  than 
we  did,  whether  he  be  lodged  at  the  Stork,  the  Stag,  the  Bear, 
the  Lion,  the  Peacock,  the  Black  Eagle  (if  he  can  find  any  such 
inns  in  the  place),  or  at  the  hotel  Baur,  to  which  Mr.  Murray 
will  direct  him.  I  like  a  pleasant  title  for  an  inn  ;  there  is 
something  friendly  and  attractive  in  it.  The  Quid  pro  Quo  would 
be  an  excellent  cognomen ;  whether  you  render  it  something  for 
somebody,  or  sure  of  your  money' *s  worth,  or  entertainment  for  man 
and  beast.  There  is  more  inn-ward  significance  in  the  titles  of 
Inns,  than  most  men  dream  of;  and  probably  a  philosophic  tra- 
veller would  find  many  a  cud  of  contemplation  both  curious  and 
instructive,  should  he  set  himself  to  trace  the  character  and 
habits  of  nations  in  the  names  and  sign-pictures  of  their  inns, 
from  the  St.  George  and  the  Dragon  of  merry  England,  to  the 
Three  Kings  of  Germany,  and  the  Hotel  of  the  Universe  in 
France. 

Zurich  is  a  town  of  about  15,000  inhabitants,  much  given  to 
manufacturing  and  literature,  careful  of  education,  prudent,  and 
industrious,  prosperous,  ancestral,  old-fashioned.  You  see  here 
a  Cathedral  of  the  tenth  century,  where  Zwingle  preached  in  the 
sixteenth.  Noble  heroic  times  and  spirits  were  here  during  the 
fires  of  the  Reformation.  Coverdale's  old  Bible,  the  first  entire 


CHAP,  xxxv.]       ZURICH  AND  THE  REFORMATION.  161 

English  version  of  the  Scriptures,  was  printed  here  in  1535  ; 
and  here  great  men,  driven  from  England  by  the  fatal  reign  of 
Mary,  came  to  worship  as  exiles,  where  in  the  enjoyment  of  the 
hospitality  of  Zurich,  they  could  cherish  their  faith,  and  wait  for 
God  to  help  them.  One  of  the  greatest  helps  God  ever  gave  to 
the  English  Reformers  was  the  bringing  them  to  this  place  and 
to  Geneva,  where  the  forms  of  glory  in  creation  were  so  grandly 
in  unison  with  the  excitement  of  their  souls  under  the  discoveries 
of  divine  truth,  and  where  they  learned  such  lessons  of  freedom 
from  the  republican  simplicity  of  the  Reformation  out  of  Eng- 
land. There  they  saw  those  wonders  of  the  world,  unseen  before 
for  ages,  those  early  simple  forms  of  government,  unhierarchi- 
calj  unmonarchical,  in  the  Church  without  a  bishop,  and  the  State 
without  a  king. 

I  am  not  afraid  of  fatiguing  my  readers  with  landing-places 
of  good  poetry,  and  they  may  be  glad  to  see,  what  perhaps  some 
of  them  have  not  seen,  a  copy  of  the  verses,  which  the  Poet  Mont- 
gomery tells  us  appeared  in  nearly  all  the  Genevan  editions  of 
that  translation  of  the  Bible,  which  was  made  during  the  reign  of 
Queen  Mary,  by  those  illustrious  exiles,  John  Knox,  Miles  Cover- 
dale,  Anthony  Gilby,  Christopher  Goodman,  and  others.  This 
translation  of  the  Bible  may  in  some  measure  be  considered  as 
one  of  the  results  of  Queen  Mary's  fires. 

"  On  the  incomparable  treasure  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

"  Here  is  the  Spring,  where  waters  flow 

To  quench  our  heat  of  sin  ; 
Here  is  the  Tree,  where  Truth  doth  grow, 
To  lead  our  lives  therein. 

Here  is  the  Judge,  that  stints  the  strife, 

Where  men's  devices  fail ; 
Here  is  the  Bread,  that  feeds  the  Life, 

That  Death  cannot  assail. 

The  tidings  of  Salvation  dear 

Come  to  our  ears  from  hence ; 
The  Fortress  of  our  Faith  is  here, 

And  Shield  of  our  defence. 

12 


162  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.          [OHAP.  xxxv. 

Then  be  not  like  the  Hog,  that  hath 

A  pearl  at  his  desire, 
But  takes  more  pleasure  at  the  trough, 

And  wallowing  in  the  mire. 

Read  not  this  Book,  in  any  case, 

But  with  a  single  eye ; 
Read  not,  but  first  desire  God's  grace 

To  understand'thereby. 

Pray  still  in  Faith,  with  this  respect, 

To  fructify  therein ; 
That  knowledge  may  bring  this  effect, 

To  mortify  thy  sin. 

Then  happy  thou,  in  all  thy  life, 

What  so  to  thee  befalls  ; 
Yea,  double  happy  thou  shalt  be, 

When  God  by  death  thee  calls." 

Of  a  clear  sunset  the  view  of  Zurich  down  the  Lake  is  most 
superbly  beautiful.  There  is  a  mixture  of  grandeur  in  its  beauty, 
owing  to  the  magnificent  outline  of  distant  mountains,  without 
which  it  might  be  somewhat  tame.  But  any  scenery  would  be 
tame  after  a  few  weeks  spent  from  Night  till  Morn  and  Morn  till 
Eve,  by  sunlight  and  moonlight,  amidst  mountains  covered  or 
crowned  with  snow.  It  is  surprising  what  an  exciting,  passionate 
effect  those  piles  of  snow  hanging  in  the  horizon  produce  upon 
the  mind  ;  you  never  tire  of  the  sight,  nor  lose  your  sense  of  its 
novelty  and  sublimity  ;  and  when  you  are  without  it,  you  desire 
it ;  a  portion  of  the  mind  of  creation  seems  abstracted.  It  is 
like  the  great  sea  in  the  landscape. 

Zurich  presents  many  points  and  sights  of  interest,  but  of  all 
the  things  offered  to  the  stranger,  the  pet  lions  to  me  have  been 
Zuinglius'  own  old  Bible,  with  his  own  notes  in  the  margin,  and 
two  or  three  letters  from  the  lovely  Lady  Jane  Grey  in  her  own 
most  beautiful  hand-writing.  Zuinglius'  notes  were  most  fre- 
quent, I  observed,  upon  the  minor  prophets ;  a  very  characteristic 
indication,  if  it  might  be  taken  for  a  proof  of  his  preferences  in 
the  Word  of  God.  For  there  is  a  fire,  a  boldness,  and  a  straight- 
forward simple  energy  and  plainness  of  dealing  in  the  minor  pro- 


CHAP,  xxxv.]       ZURICH  AND  THE  REFORMATION.  163 

phets,  which  wonderfully  marked  the  character  of  the  Swiss  Re- 
former.  The  prophets  Amos  and  Hosea  would  be  likely  to  be 
favorites  with  him.  He  called  no  man  master  on  earth,  and 
labored  faithfully  for  his  Master  in  Heaven.  He  and  Luther 
and  Melancthon  must  have  had  a  joyful  meeting  with  one  another, 
and  with  Paul  and  Peter  and  John,  and  other  old  disciples  and 
worthies.  How  they  talked  over  the  scenes  of  the  Reformation 
and  of  the  great  primeval  spread  of  the  gospel  beginning  at 
Jerusalem  ! 

The  Reformers,  as  well  as  the  Apostles,  worked  and  wrote, 
much  of  their  time,  with  Death  full  in  view  •  and  there  is  nothing 
like  that  to  give  fire  to  a  man's  thoughts,  fervor  to  his  feelings, 
and  such  an  earnestness  and  solemnity  of  tone  to  his  utterances, 
as  will  compel  men  to  heed  them.  Almost  every  word  was  like 
a  last  word,  and  like  a  testimony  amidst  the  fire.  While  this 
was  the  case,  their  communications  one  with  another,  and  with 
the  people,  had  a  grave  sublime  impression  and  prophecy  of 
danger  and  of  suffering,  very  powerful  upon  a  soul  under  the 
seizure  of  divine  truth  and  grace.  There  was  little  room  for 
declamation,  or  superficial  or  artificial  eloquence,  in  such  circum- 
stances •  everything  came  straight  from  the  soul,  and  went 
straight  to  the  soul,  driven  by  conviction.  Life  was  a  great 
solemn  tragedy.  The  bare  utterance  of  truth  was  like  storming 
a  breach  at  the  mouth  of  cannon.  Hence  the  decisive  energy, 
conciseness,  and  power  of  the  Reformers. 

It  is  not  so  now  in  Germany  ;  the  new  reformation  is  indeed  a 
revolution,  but  of  a  much  lower  kind ;  the  Spirit  of  God  evi- 
dently thus  far  has  much  less  to  do  with  it,  and  though  it  is 
doubtless  one  of  God's  great  shakings  and  overturnings,  in  pre- 
paration for  the  administration  of  the  Spirit,  it  must  be  regarded 
thus  far  principally  as  preparation.  The  Question  now  is  Re- 
ligious Liberty  ;  in  the  first  Reformation  it  was  Religious  LIFE  : 
there  lies  the  difference.  After  Life  comes  Liberty,  but  you  are 
not  so  sure  that  after  Liberty  comes  Life.  Men  may  mistake 
license  for  liberty,  even  in  religion  ;  and  as  in  the  Canton  de 
Vaud,  license  and  despotism  may  go  hand  in  hand,  imposing  fet- 
ters on  the  Church  and  on  the  soul. 

Zurich  owes  much  of  the  prosperity  and  learning  by  which  it 


164  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.          [CHAP.  xxxv. 

is  distinguished,  to  its  hearty  acceptance  and  defence  of  the  doc- 
trines and  followers  of  the  Reformation.  It  is  a  most  impressive 
lesson  to  compare  the  history  of  Zurich  at  the  north,  with  that  of 
Locarno  at  the  south,  of  the  Swiss  territory.  About  the  year 
1530  a  devout  monk  from  Milan,  Beccaria  by  name,  came  to 
Locarno  as  an  earnest  teacher  of  Evangelical  Truth.  The 
Romish  governor  of  the  bailiwick  had  the  preacher  thrown  into 
prison,  hoping  in  this  way  to  stop  the  fire  of  the  Reformation  from 
spreading.  But  it  had  already  burned  too  deep  and  too  far  ;  the 
people  surrounded  the  castle  of  the  governor  and  compelled  him 
to  release  their  preacher,  who  afterwards  escaped  into  the  Val 
Misocco.  The  next  step  of  the  governor,  under  authority  of  the 
seven  Romish  Cantons,  was  to  command  all  the  disciples  of  the 
Reformation  to  attend  mass,  under  pain  of  outlawry.  The  Pope, 
by  his  Nuncio  with  the  Priests,  continued  to  aggravate  the  per- 
secution, until  the  resolution  was  taken  to  banish  the  Protestants 
with  their  families  from  their  homes  for  ever.  The  decree  was 
issued  in  March,  1555.  In  the  town-hall  of  Locarno,  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  followers  of  the  Reformed  faith  received  sentence 
of  exile,  and  immediately  set  out,  amidst  all  the  severity  of  the 
season,  across  savage  mountains,  to  find  a  kinder  home,  where 
the  beliefs  so  dear  to  conscience,  and  so  sacred  to  the  sight  of 
God,  would  be  revered  by  man,  and  permitted  in  their  cherished 
exercise. 

From  that  period,  the  decay  of  Locarno  in  industry  and  pros- 
perity followed,  while  Zurich  received  a  new  source  of  wealth 
and  an  additional  element  of  art  and  refinement.  "  The  evan- 
gelical confederates,"  says  Zschokke,  "  welcomed  them  with  true 
Christian  charity,  and  more  than  a  hundred  of  these  unfortunate 
exiles,  amongst  whom  were  many  affluent  and  learned  men,  as 
Orelli,  Muralt,  and  others,  found  an  asylum  at  Zurich,  where 
their  families  are  distinguished  to  the  present  day.  By  their 
means  the  art  of  weaving  silk  was  introduced  into  Zurich ;  they 
also  established  mills  and  dyeing  houses,  and  contributed  so  much 
by  their  industry  to  the  prosperity  of  the  town,  that  its  celebrity 
was  soon  extended  far  beyond  the  limits  of  Switzerland." 

After  the  sentence  of  banishment  from  Locarno  had  been  pro- 
nounced by  the  deputies,  the  Pope's  Nuncio,  with  a  couple  of 


CHAP,  xxxv.]       ZURICH  AND  THE  REFORMATION.  165 

Inquisitors,  made  their  appearance,  and  with  great  severity  ex- 
claimed against  the  mildness  of  the  punishment.  They  demanded 
of  the  council,  on  pain  of  the  Pope's  indignation,  to  add  the 
penalty  of  confiscation  to  that  of  banishment,  to  take  away  all  the 
properly  of  the  exiles,  and  to  separate  from  them  their  children 
also,  in  order  to  have  them  educated  in  the  Romish  faith.  The 
Romish  deputies,  to  their  praise  be  it  spoken,  would  not  listen  to 
these  cruel  persuasions  on  the  part  of  the  Priests  and  his  Holi- 
ness, but  made  answer  that  they  never  reversed  a  sentence  once 
pronounced. 


166  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.         [CHAP,  xxxvi. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

Scenery  on  the  Lake  of  Zurich. — Poetry  for  Pilgrims.— Grandeur  of  the 
Lake  of  Wallenstadt. 

THE  scenery  on  the  Lake  of  Zurich  resembles  that  upon  Long 
Island  Sound,  and  upon  some  of  our  New-England  rivers.  It  is 
of  a  quiet  beauty,  with  an  air  of  neatness,  freedom,  and  content 
in  the  villages,  which  appear  to  great  advantage,  rising  with  their 
church  steeples  and  tiled  roofs  up  the  hill  sides  from  the  lake. 
The  day  we  left  for  Wallenstadt  and  Coire,  the  steamer  was 
crowded  with  pilgrims  for  Einsiedeln.  Most  of  them  landed  at 
Richtensweil,  for  a  walk  of  lead-tellings  and  aves  over  the  moun- 
tains, to  the  shrine  of  their  faith,  the  "  Star  of  the  Sea."  God 
grant  they  may  one  day  find  in  Christ  that  "  rest  unto  their 
souls,"  which  they  will  seek  in  vain  at  the  sooty  image  of  Mary 
in  Einsiedeln.  Neither  age  nor  infirmity  can  move  them  from 
their  purpose.  Dr.  Beattie,  in  his  excellent  work  on  Switzerland, 
tells  us  that  while  he  and  his  friends  were  spending  the  month  of 
September  near  the  Lake  of  Zurich,  they  saw  among  the  pilgrims 
a  venerable  matron  a  hundred  and  eight  years  old,  who  had  walked 
every  step  of  the  way  from  the  remotest  corner  of  Normandy  in 
France,  for  the  performance  of  a  vow  to  Mary  of  the  Swiss 
Mountains  !  What  singular  energy  of  superstition,  at  a  time 
when  all  the  faculties  of  life  wear  out !  The  vesper  hymns  of 
the  pilgrims  rose  impressively  upon  the  air  in  the  still  autumnal 
evenings,  and  one  idea,  one  principle,  seemed  to  govern  and  ab- 
sorb them  all.  Many  of  them,  Dr.  Beattie  remarks,  looked  sickly, 
wan,  and  exhausted,  the  health,  which  they  came  sadly  to  beg  of 
Mary  at  Einsiedeln,  being  lost  still  more  hopelessly  by  the  fatigues 
and  fastings  of  the  way. 

Poor,  deluded  pilgrims  !  Is  it  not  sad  to  see  them,  wandering 
the  world  over  after  health  and  peace,  but  never  coming  to  the 
Great  Physician !  Rest,  rest,  rest ; — this  is  the  object  of  all  their 


CHAP,  xxxvi.]  POETRY  FOR  PILGRIMS.  167 

toils,  toils,  toils ; — but  no  toils  of  the  body  can  ever  give  inward 
quiet,  or  allay  sin's  fitful  fever  in  the  soul,  or  prevent  the  remorse- 
ful tones  in  the  depths  of  our  fallen  being,  that  are  ever  and  anon 
rushing  up  with  wild  prophecies  from  the  soul's  inner  chambers, 
like  the  sound  of  a  gong  in  subterranean  dungeons.  Alas,  what 
a  mistake,  to  wander  so  far,  so  sadly,  so  wearily  without,  for  that 
which  is  to  be  found  only  within,  and  only  in  Christ  within. 
These  angel  will-worshippers,  and  voluntary  humilitarians,  and 
body-punishers,  are  the  strangest  quacks  that  ever  meddled  with 
disease.  Physical  blisters  to  soothe  an  irritated  conscience,  to  lull 
the  mental  anxieties  into  forgetfulness,  to  draw  forth  the  rooted 
sorrow  of  a  wounded  spirit,  to  quiet  the  feverish  apprehensions 
of  a  coming  judgment !  O  for  a  word  from  Christ,  a  look,  to  unseal 
the  fountain  of  tears,  a  whisper,  I  AM  THE  WAY,  THE  TRUTH,  THE 
LIFE.  All  the  cantharides  of  penance,  sackcloth  and  ashes, 
stripes  on  the  body,  pebbles  in  the  shoes,  rough  pilgrimages  over 
desert  and  mountain,  fasts  and  aves  and  orisons  in  arithmetical 
progression, — did  ever  one  of  them  or  all  together  put  a  man  at 
peace  with  his  conscience,  or  extract  the  thorn,  or  charm  the 
serpent  in  one  of  his  sins  ? 

What  a  simple  thing  is  the  Gospel  !  How  all  heaven,  in  know- 
ledge and  blessedness,  is  comprehended  in  that  one  precious  word, 
I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth,  the  Life  !  The  Gospel,  applicable  to 
all,  the  same  in  all  places,  in  all  times,  in  the  cottage  and  the 
palace,  in  the  city  and  the  wilderness,  in  caves  and  dens  of  the 
earth  and  great  houses,  with  rich  tables,  or  the  crumbs  from 
them,  in  fine  linen  or  in  sheepskins  and  goatskins,  with  rich  and 
poor,  with  bond  and  free  ;  the  Gospel,  the  same  simple  all-suffi- 
cient food  and  remedy,  Christ  all  and  in  all,  the  supply  of  all 
wants,  the  recompense  for  all  evils,  the  healing  of  all  diseases, 
the  world's  medicine,  happiness  and  transfiguration  !  Here  and 
here  only  you  have  the  impulse  and  soul  of  all  lasting  reforms, 
the  reformation  of  all  reformers,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all 
true  pilgrimages,  the  consolation  and  support  of  all  pilgrims. 
"  Must  I  forsake  the  soil  and  air,"  said  Baxter, 

"  Must  I  forsake  the  soil  and  air, 
Where  first  I  drew  my  vital  breath  ? 
That  way  may  be  as  near  and  fair, 


108  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.        [CHAP,  xxxvi. 

Whence  I  may  come  to  Thee  by  death. 
All  countries  are  my  Father's  lands ; 
Thy  Sun,  thy  Love,  doth  shine  on  all ; 
We  may  in  all  lift  up  pure  hands, 
And  with  acceptance  on  Thee  call. 

What  if  in  prison  I  must  dwell, 
May  I  not  there  converse  with  Thee  ? 
Save  me  from  sin,  thy  wrath,  and  hell, 
Call  me  thy  child,  AND  I  AM  FREE  ! 
No  walls  or  bars  can  keep  Thee  out,- 
None  can  confine  a  holy  soul ; 
The  streets  of  heaven  it  walks  about, 
None  can  its  liberty  control." 

Now,  because  it  is  suitable  to  this  part  of  our  pilgrimage,  and 
fine  in  itself,  though  rude  and  plain,  I  shall  add  Baxter's  Vale- 
diction, so  faithful  and  bold  in  its  rebuke  of  that  vain  show, 
wherein  all  men  naturally  are  not  so  much  pedestrians,  as  they 
are  ambitious  runners  and  wrestlers.  With  this  we  will  leave 
our  Einsiedelners,  and  proceed  to  Wallenstadt. 

"  Man  walks  in  a  vain  show. 
They  know,  yet  will  not  know, 
Sit  still  when  they  should  go, 

But  run  for  shadows  : 
While  they  might  taste  and  know 
The  living  streams  that  flow, 
And  crop  the  flowers  that  grow, 

In  Christ's  sweet  meadows. 
Life's  better  slept  away, 

Than  as  they  use  it ; 
In  sin  and  drunken  play 

Vain  men  abuse  it. 

They  dig  for  hell  beneath, 
They  labor  hard  for  death, 
Run  themselves  out  of  breath 

To  overtake  it. 
Hell  is  not  had  for  naught, 
Damnation's  dearly  bought, 
And  with  great  labor  sought, 

They'll  not  forsake  it. 
Their  souls  are  Satan's  fee, 

He'll  not  abate  it ; 


CHAP,  xxxvi.]  RAPPERSCHWYL.  169 

Grace  is  refused,  that's  free, 
Mad  sinners  hate  it. 

Is  this  the  world  men  choose, 
For  which  they  heaven  refuse, 
And  Christ  and  grace  abuse, 

And  not  receive  it  ? 
^        Shall  I  not  guilty  be, 

Of  this  in  some  degree, 

If  hence  God  would  me  free, 

And  I'd  not  leave  it  ? 
My  soul,  from  Sodom  fly, 

Lest  wrath  there  find  thee  ;  % 

Thy  refuge -rest  is  nigh, 

Look  not  behind  thee." 

From  Zurich  to  Schmerikon,  at  the  other  end  oT  the  lake  to- 
wards Italy,  is  about  twenty- six  miles,  the  greatest  width  of  the 
lake  being  only  three  miles,  and  generally  much  narrower.  The 
banks  are  beautifully  sprinkled  with  white  cottages,  farm-houses, 
and  thriving  villages,  the  abodes  of  industry  and  peace.  Over 
the  verdant  wooded  mountains,  with  such  a  green  and  richly  cul- 
tivated base,  rise  up  the  snowy  peaks,  like  revelations  of  another 
world,  calling  you  away  to  its  glory.  If  you  are  familiar  with 
the  writings  of  Klopstock,  Zimmerman  and  Gessner,  you  probably 
know  something  of  the  inspiration  which  such  scenery  tends  to 
kindle  and  keep  burning  in  a  sensitive  mind.  Gessner  was  a 
native  of  Zurich  ;  Zimmerman's  residence  was  on  the  borders 
of  the  lake  at  Richtensweil. 

At  Rapperschwyl,  you  are  in  the  Canton  of  St.  Gall,  opposite 
the  longest  bridge  in  the  world,  and  probably  the  worst,  taking 
into  consideration  the  vast  extent  of  its  qualities,  four  thousand 
eight  hundred  feet.  It  is  a  singular  feature  on  the  lake,  when 
viewed  from  the  mountains.  The  village  of  Rapperschwyl 
is  a  place  to  put  an  artist  with  his  portfolio  in  good  humor  \  a 
feudal  old  town,  an  ancient  grey  castle,  an  old  church,  old  walls, 
and  fine  picturesque  points  of  view  overlooking  the  water. 
Thence  we  proceeded  to  Schmerikon,  where  we  embarked  on 
board  the  diligence  for  Wesen,  and  then  found  ourselves  at  the 
western  extremity  of  the  Lake  of  Wallenstadt,  suddenly  in  the 


170  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.        [CHAP,  xxxvi. 

midst  of  some  of  the  grandest,  most  glorious,  most  exciting  scenery 
in  the  world. 

There  is  no  describing  it ;  at  least  no  possibility  of  justly  con- 
veying its  magnificence.  The  Lake  of  Wallenstadt,  about  twelve 
miles  long,  is  preeminent  in  beauty  and  grandeur.  It  is  inferior 
only  to  the  Lake  of  Lucerne,  and  that  is  saying  much.  There 
is  the  greatest  majesty  and  glory  in  the  forms  of  the  mountains 
that  rise  out  of  it,  while  the  side  gorges  that  open  off  from  it  are 
picturesque,  rich  and  beautiful.  We  felt  in  going  from  the 
scenes  of  open  luxuriance  around  Zurich,  that  it  was  good  to  get 
again  among  the  mountains,  it  was  like  going  back  into  the  fort- 
ress of  the  soul.  Those  mighty  towering  masses  seem  to  prop 
and  elevate  the  inward  being.  They  look  down  upon  you  so 
silent,  so 'awful,  so  expressive;  you  have  the  same  feelings  in 
entering  among  them,  that  you  have  in  going  beneath  the  dome 
of  some  vast  religious  temple,  the  same  that  you  have  in  walking 
on  the  shore  of  the  ocean.  We  dined  on  deck  on  board  the 
steamer,  but  it  really  seemed  incongruous  to  be  eating  amidst 
such  grand  and  solemn  scenery  ;  the  table  of  a  restaurant  set  in 
the  middle  of  St.  Peter's,  would  have  seemed  almost  as  much  in 
keeping.  Nevertheless,  men  must  eat,  drink,  and  sleep,  though 
the  scenery  be  ever  so  beautiful.  In  the  midst  of  our  dinner,  we 
came  opposite  the  point,  where  in  a  mountain  more  than  seven 
thousand  feet  high,  an  immense  cavern  pierces  entirely  through 
the  summit,  so  that  even  from  the  lake  you  can  look  through  it 
and  see  the  sky,  though  you  would  think  it  was  a  patch  of  snow 
you  were  looking  at. 

After  a  few  hours  from  Wallenstadt  through  the  beautiful 
scenery  of  the  vale  of  Scez,  we  arrived  at  Ragatz,  for  a  visit  to 
the  astounding  black  glen  of  the  Baths  of  Pfeffers.  The  evening 
threatened  a  storm,  but  we  had  enjoyed  a  day  of  great  grandeur, 
and  for  the  night  were  in  good  time  at  the  comfortable  shelter  of 
an  inn,  which  the  guide-books  tell  you  was  an  old  summer  resi- 
dence of  the  Abbots. 


CHAP,  xxxvii.]  BATHS  OF  PFEFFERS.  171 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Baths  of  Pfeffers.— Gorge  of  the  Tamina. — Coire  and  the  Grisons. 

IT  rains  in  torrents.  We  can  no  more  tell  where  we  are,  than 
if  it  were  midnight.  No  morn  has  come;  as  on  the  Righi,  in 
russet  mantle  clad,  disclosing  in  heaven  and  earth  a  wide,  won- 
drous, exciting  scene  of  glory  and  beauty,  but  rain,  rain,  rain; 
grave,  determined,  steadfast,  concentrated  rain,  and  nothing  else 
sensible  or  visible.  You  could  not  guess  that  there  was  either 
mountain,  village,  or  horizon  in  Switzerland,  but  now  and  then, 
as  at  breathing  intervals,  the  huge  dark  masses  dripping  in  mist, 
loom  out  of  the  storm,  like  the  hulks  of  a  wrebked  creation.  It 
is,  to  say  the  least,  a  very  vigorous  break  upon  the  monotony  of 
fair  weather,  and  inasmuch  as  we  have  no  mountain  excursion 
to  make  to-day,  but  a  gorge  to  visit,  in  which  Dante  might  have 
chained  the  tenants  of  his  sixth  hell,  if  the  rain  holds  up,  so  that 
we  can  get  to  the  mouth  of  it,  it  may  pour  on  afterwards,  without 
disturbing  our  progress  towards  the  earth's  centre. 

The  object  for  which  most  travellers  stop,  as  we  have  done,  at 
Ragatz,  is  the  celebrated  cavern  of  the  Baths  of  PfefFers,  the 
most  extraordinary  scene,  for  its  compass,  in  all  Switzerland. 
It  is  a  gorge  and  cavern  combined,  a  remarkable  split  in  the 
mountain,  deep,  dark,  ragged,  and  savage,  the  sides  of  which 
cross  their  jagged  points  far  above  you,  so  closely,  like  the  teeth 
of  a  saw,  that  only  here  and  there  you  can  see  the  daylight  at 
the  top,  and  the  sky,  through  the  rift,  with  the  trees  of  the  ex- 
ternal world  peeping  down  upon  you.  As  far  below,  a  torrent 
is  thundering,  and  you  creep,  hanging  midway  to  the  dripping 
shelves  of  the  cliff,  along  a  suspended  footpath,  a  couple  of  planks 
wide,  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  mile  into  the  heart  of  the  great  fis- 
sure. There,  in  a  crypt  in  the  deep  rock,  lies  the  hot  fountain, 
where  a  cloud  of  steam  rises  round  you  like  a  vapor  bath,  and 
the  gush  of  hot  water  pours  its  cascade  into  the  roaring  cold 


172  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.       [CHAP,  xxxvu. 

torrent  below.  This  torrent,  for  the  convenience  of  which  the 
mountain  seems  to  have  been  sundered,  is  called  the  Tamina ; 
it  bellows  through  the  gorge  with  terrific  din  and  fury,  shoots 
past  the  base  of  perpendicular  and  overhanging  mountains  seven 
or  eight  hundred  feet  high,  and  after  plunging  from  precipice  to 
precipice  in  grand  cataracts  along  its  deep  channel,  pours  itself 
into  the  Rhine. 

From  Ragatz  to  the  Baths,  it  is  a  constant  gradual  ascent  of 
about  an  hour,  through  scenery  romantic  and  grand,  and  deep- 
ening into  sublimity  as  you  reach,  beneath  the  overhanging 
mountains,  by  the  sound  of  the  deep  struggling  thunder  of  the 
Tamina,  the  grim  old  Bath-buildings,  that  rise  like  a  portal  in 
the  jaws  of  hell.  From  hence  up  to  the  hot  spring,  along  the 
wet,  shaking,  crazy,  old  plank  bridge,  which  I  have  described, 
with  the  torrent  boiling  at  the  bottom  of  the  chasm,  about  forty 
feet  beneath  you,  and  the  serrated,  craggy,  intertwisting,  over- 
lapping marble  walls  rising  several  hundred  feet  above  you,  the 
passage  is  such  an  one  as  Bunyan  might  have  taken  for  the  type 
of  his  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death.  It  is  a  most  tremendous 
scene,  before  which  all  your  previous  experiences  of  the  wild, 
terrible,  and  fantastic  freaks  of  nature  have  to  give  way  in  sub- 
mission. You  will  never  forget  this  gorge  of  the  Tamina,  and 
these  Baths  of  Pfeffers. 

It  is  said  they  were  discovered  about  the  year  1000,  and  that 
patients  used  to  be  let  down  by  ropes  from  the  cliffs  into  the  very 
fountain,  to  be  steeped  there  for  hours,  and  drawn  up  again.  The 
next  progressive  step  in  comfort  was  a  number  of  cells  like  mag- 
pies' nests,  pinned  to  the  walls  around  the  fountain,  where  pa- 
tients might  abide  the  season.  Far  gone  a  man  must  be  in 
disease,  and  wobegone  in  spirit,  before  an  abode  in  that  frightful 
dripping  chasm  would  do  him  good.  In  the  next  age  men's  ideas 
in  therapeutics  were  so  advanced,  that  they  conducted  the  hot 
medicinal  water  by  conduits  out  of  the  gorge,  and  built  the  grisly 
bath-houses  at  the  entrance ;  and  still  later  they  have  come  to 
the  perfection  of  the  system,  by  conveying  the  water  down  to 
the  comfortable  inn  at  Ragatz.  Its  temperature  at  the  spring  is 
about  100  degrees  Fahrenheit.  It  enjoys  a  wide  and  thorough 
reputation  for  its  healing  efficacy. 


CHAP,  xxxvii.]  REVERIE  OF  THE  ALPS.  173 

If  it  had  not  been  for  the  rain,  we  might  have  enjoyed,  from 
the  heights  above  this  terrific  gorge,  a  view  as  vast  and  beautiful, 
as  the  ravine  itself  is  deep  and  dreadful.  The  sketch  of  it  by 
the  artist  forms  one  of  the  finest  landscapes  in  the  Swiss  port- 
folio. Here  the  Poet  Montgomery  might  have  stood  at  day -break, 
as  we  have  done  upon  the  Righi,  in  bright  weather,  and  dreamed 
that  Reverie  of  the  Alps,  of  which  the  two  opening  and  closing 
stanzas  are  so  impressive  and  sublime. 

"  The  mountains  of  this  glorious  land 

Are  conscious  beings  to  mine  eye, 
When  at  the  break  of  day  they  stand 

Like  giants,  looking  through  the  sky, 
To  hail  the  sun's  unrisen  car, 

That  gilds  their  diadems  of  snow, 
While  one  by  one,  as  star  by  star, 

Their  peaks  in  ether  glow. 

Their  silent  presence  fills  my  soul, 
#  When,  to  the  horizontal  ray 

The  many-tinctured  vapors  roll 

In  evanescent  wreaths  away, 
And  leave  them  naked  on  the  scene, 

The  emblems  of  Eternity, 
The  same  as  they  have  ever  been, 

And  shall  for  ever  be  ! 

And  0  ye  everlasting  hills! 

Buildings  of  God,  not  made  with  hands, 
Whose  Word  performs  whate'er  he  wills, 

Whose  Word,  though  ye  shall  perish,  stands ; 
Can  there  be  eyes  that  look  on  you, 

Till  tears  of  rapture  make  them  dim, 
Nor  in  his  works  the  Maker  view, 

Then  lose  his  works  in  Him  ? 

By  me,  when  I  behold  Him  not, 

Or  love  Him  not  when  I  behold, 
Be  all  I  ever  knew  forgot : 

My  pulse  stand  still,  my  heart  grow  cold  ; 
Transformed  to  ice,  'twixt  earth  and  sky, 

On  yonder  cliff  my  form  be  seen, 
That  all  may  ask,  but  none  reply, 

What  my  offence  hath  been  I" 


174  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.         [CHAP,  xxxvn. 

From  Ragatz  we  posted  to  Coire,  in  the  Canton  of  the  Orisons. 
It  is  an  old  capital  of  some  5,000  inhabitants,  enjoying  some 
peculiar  commercial  advantages  by  its  position  at  the  confluences 
of  various  roads,  and  on  the  highway  of  travel  from  Italy  into 
Switzerland  and  Germany.  The  Canton  in  the  main  is  Pro- 
testant, and  the  democratic  government  is  in  a  Council  of  seventy 
members  at  Coire.  In  the  Cantons  of  St.  Gall,  Glarus,  and  the 
Grisons,  there  are  some  delightful  and  rare  examples  of  religious 
toleration  and  equality  between  the  two  systems  that  divide  the 
population.  Sometimes,  the  Protestants  and  Romanists  being 
nearly  equal  in  numbers,  the  same  church  is  used  by  them  for 
public  worship  in  turn.  This  is  the  case  in  some  parts  of  the 
Rheinthal,  a  valley  of  the  Rhine,  which  has  its  three  sources  in 
the  Canton  of  the  Grisons.  In  the  Canton  Glarus,  containing 
about  twenty-six  thousand  inhabitants,  though  the  Protestants 
number  three-fourths  of  the  population,  the  governmental 
"  council  is  composed  of  equal  proportions  of  the  inhabitants, 
Catholics  and  Protestants,"  and  in  some  cases  the  same^chapel 
is  used  for  both  congregations.  The  churches  and  schools  are 
established  and  paid  by  the  government,  and  parents  are  required 
under  a  certain  penalty  to  send  their  children  for  instruction. 

If  the  traveller  wishes  to  know  how  that  rare  thing  in  Europe, 
the  Voluntary  System,  acts  upon  the  happiness  of  the  people 
where  it  prevails,  he  may  turn  to  Mr.  Murray's  short  description 
of  the  Engadine  Valley,  with  its  populous  and  flourishing  vil- 
lages, where  they  have  "  nine  months  of  winter,  and  three  of  cold 
weather."  What  the  writer  intended  as  a  blot,  appears  only  as 
a  seal  of  primitive  truth  and  purity.  "  Poverty,"  he  says.  "  is 
rare,  beggary  almost  unknown,  and  the  people,  who  are,  with  the 
exception  of  one  or  two  parishes,  Protestants,  are  creditably  dis- 
tinguished for  their  morality,  and  are  exempt  from  the  vices  com- 
mon in  other  parts  of  Switzerland.  Their  pastors  are  held  in 
great  respect,  but  their  pay  is  miserable,  affording  a  striking 
proof  of  the  working  of  a  voluntary  system.  The  Sabbath  is 
strictly  observed  ;  strangers  only  are  allowed  on  that  day  to  ride 
or  drive  until  after  church  time."  A  voluntary  system  that  pro- 
duces such  fruits  as  these,  is  better  than  all  the  will- worship  of 
the  most  lavishly  supported  hierarchical  or  state  establishments. 


CHAP,  xxxviii.]  COURSE  OF  THE  RHINE.  175 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

Course  of  the  Rhine.— Louis  Philippe,  the  Royal  Schoolmaster  at  Reiche- 
nau. — Reichenau  to  Thusis. 

FROM  Coire  we  pass  through  Reichenau,  a  little  village  at  the 
bridges,  where  the  two  branches  of  the  Rhine  unite,  one  from  the 
St.  Gothard,  the  other  from  the  pass  of  the  Splugen,  to  form  the 
"  rejoicing  and  abounding  river,"  that  runs  in  and  out  at  the 
Lake  of  Constance,  thunders  over  the  falls  at  Schaff  hausen, 
feeds  the  pride,  patriotism  and  wine-vats  of  all  Germany,  and 
after  its  long  course  of  grandeur,  fuss  and  glory,  is  sponged  up 
by  the  sands  before  it  can  reach  the  sea.  Poor  disappointed 
river !  What  an  emblem  it  is  of  the  closing  life  of  some  men, 
who  have  made  a  great  stir  in  their  day,  but  go  entirely  out  of 
men's  minds  before  they  die  ! 

An  emblem  of  some  noisy  reformers  and  agitators  without 
heart,  who  make  a  great  show  of  patriotism,  benevolence  and 
fearless  zeal  for  a  time,  but  by  and  by  sink  down  and  are  heard 
of  no  more,  in  the  sand-banks  of  selfishness  and  expediency. 
An  emblem  more  fitly  of  some  truly  great  men,  like  Scott  and 
Southey,  in  whom  paralysis  overtakes  the  mental  faculties,  after 
they  have  enriched  society  with  the  overflowing  treasures  of  their 
great  genius.  But  not  an  emblem  of  the  Christian,  who  "  like 
the  sun  seems  larger  at  his  setting,"  and  pours  as  a  river  of  life, 
into  the  Ocean  of  eternity.  Nor  is  it  an  emblem  of  that  River, 
the  streams  whereof  make  glad  the  City  of  God  ;  for  the  gladden- 
ing  and  glory  of  its  course  here,  are  but  things  by  the  way, 
incidental  results,  by  which  it  transfigures  human  society  with 
peace  and  beauty,  while  the  depth  and  blessedness  of  its  elements- 
are  then  only  to  be  fully  seen  and  known,  when  out  of  Death  it 
flows  a  shining  Sea  of  Life  through  Eternity. 

There  is  an  inn  at  Reichenau,  formerly  a  Chateau,  which  Louis 


176  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.         [CHAP,  xxxvin. 

Philippe,  King  of  the  French,  would  perhaps  be  glad  to  have 
transported  into  the  Museum  of  the  Louvre,  as  a  sort  of  old 
chrysalis  of  the  living  Monarch,  more  curious,  in  some  respects, 
than  the  Sarcophagi  of  dead  Egyptian  kings.  In  this  Chateau  at 
Reichenau,  in  the  days  of  his  adversity,  while  the  French  Revo- 
lution, with  Napoleon  as  its  Star  of  the  Morning,  its  Lucifer, 
was  sweeping  on  its  swift  and  awful  wing  across  the  nations, 
Louis  Philippe,  the  friendless  young  man,  the  future  Monarch, 
taught  Mathematics  and  History  in  a  common  school  !  Com- 
pelled to  fly  from  Baumgarten  in  1793,  he  brought  a  secret  letter 
of  introduction  to  M.  Jost,  the  Principal  of  the  burgomaster 
Tscharner's  school,  and  being  appointed  a  teacher,  he  found  a 
refuge  for  near  a  year,  unknown,  in  this  employment.  A  season 
of  much  meditation  it  must  have  been  to  him,  of  hard  and  profit- 
able thinking,  of  useful  trial,  and  of  much  enjoyment  in  nature. 
Sometimes  he  stopped  in  the  midst  of  his  Algebraic  solutions,  as 
one  surrounded  in  a  dream  by  the  din  and  smoke  of  the  armies 
of  his  country,  and  sometimes  he  was  himself  in  a  reverie  in  the 
palace  of  the  Tuileries,  in  Paris,  while  the  boys  were  following 
his  compasses  and  calculations  round  the  wooden  globe.  Many  a 
pleasant  walk  he  must  have  had  among  the  mountains,  many  a 
refreshing  swim  in  the  blue  and  grey  .waters  of  the  Rhine.  The 
schoolmaster  may  have  been  happier  than  the  Monarch,  and  proba- 
bly was.  Fifty-four  years  ago,  how  little  could  he  have  dreamed 
the  scenes,  through  which  his  life  of  the  next  half  century,  as  the 
Actor,  instead  of  the  Teacher  of  history,  was  to  be  drawn  !  The 
young  pedestrian,  with  a  bundle  on  his  back  and  a  pilgrim's  staff, 
calling  himself  Monsieur  Chabot,  knew  not  that  he  was  on  his  way 
to  the  throne,  instead  of  from  it,  or  that  the  extremes  of  his  life, 
almost  his  first  and  second  childhood,  should  be  the  instruction  of 
half  a  dozen  Swiss  children,  and  the  governing  of  thirty  millions 
of  French. 

On  our  way  towards  this  village  we  passed  in  sight  of  the 
hamlet  of  Feldsberg,  threatened  with  destruction  from  the  fall 
of  an  overhanging  mountain  more  perpendicular  by  far  than  the 
Rossberg.  The  danger  was  so  imminent,  that  the  inhabitants, 
some  months  before,  had  begged  to  be  received  into  a  neighboring 
commune,  and  united  with  it.  But  the  people  of  Feldsberg  were 


CHAP,  xxxvin.]  INTOLERANCE.  177 

Protestants ;  so  the  authorities  of  the  Romish  commune  refused 
to  grant  their  request,  unless  they  would  renounce  the  Protestant 
Faith,  and  become  Roman  Catholics !  This  was  truly  charac- 
teristic ;  and  the  determination  of  the  poor  people  to  abide  by 
the  gospel  under  the  falling  mountain,  rather  than  take  refuge  in 
Romanism  from  the  Avalanche,  was  equally  so.  What  disposition 
has  been  made  of  the  inhabitants,  I  know  not ;  but  it  is  very 
clear  that  the  religious  charity  and  freedom,  applauded  in  some 
parts  of  the  Canton,  have  no  place  in  the  neighborhood  of  this 
threatened  convulsion  of  nature.  There  is  in  this  very  region  a 
mixture  of  the  two  opposite  systems  of  religion  quite  unexam- 
pled, the  village  of  Reichenau,  for  instance,  being  Romish,  while 
just  the  other  side  of  the  river  the  hamlet  is  Protestant.  The 
languages  are  quite  as  distinct,  one  village  speaking  German, 
while  its  next  neighbor  talks  in  the  Romansch  patois. 

The  world  has  made  the  greatest  mistake  against  its  own  in- 
terests in  being  so  intolerant,  that  ever  was  made.  Sometimes 
one  portion  of  it  has  driven  away  from  its  bosom  the  most  vital 
elements  of  its  industry  and  prosperity,  because  they  could  not 
conform  to  its  hierarchical  and  religious  despotisms.  Spain  im- 
poverished herself  by  driving  out  the  Moors  and  Jews.  France 
put  back  her  own  advancement  in  agriculture  and  manufactures 
irretrievably  by  burning  out  the  Huguenots,  and  at  the  same 
time  enriched  other  countries  at  her  own  expense.  Italy  im- 
poverished and  debilitated  herself  in  like  manner  by  the  peremp- 
tory banishment  of  some  of  her  best  manufacturers,  because  they 
were  Reformed,  and  in  that  measure  took  the  most  direct  course 
possible  to  build  up  the  Protestant  City  of  Zurich,  where  the 
banished  ones  from  Locarno  found  a  hospitable  refuge  with  all 
their  wealth,  arts,  and  industry.  They  who  will  leave  a  country 
for  their  faith,  rather  than  desert  their  faith,  are  likely  to  be  the 
best  of  its  citizens,  and  when  you  draw  them  off,  you  take  away 
the  life-blood  of  the  country.  This  is  one  way  in  which,  by  the 
constitution  of  Divine  Providence,  men's  sins  come  down  upon 
their  own  pate,  and  nations  reap  the  fire  of  their  own  persecu- 
tions. They  sow  their  fields  with  fire,  and  gather  the  fire  into 
their  own  garners.  They  sow  the  wind,  and  reap  the  whirlwind. 
But  men  do  not  learn  this,  until  they  see  it  in  history,  and  even 

VOL.  n.  13 


178  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.      [CHAP,  xxxvm. 

there  they  rarely  turn  the  light  of  their  own  experience  upon 
the  future,  so  that  selfishness  and  passion  often  beguile  one 
generation  to  a  plunge  into  the  same  mistakes  that  have  ruined 
the  preceding. 

From  Reichenau  we  posted  the  same  evening  to  Thusis,  a 
village  of  about  seven  hundred  inhabitants,  situated  against  the 
jaws  of  the  wildest,  most  tremendous  defile  in  Switzerland,  on 
a  mountain  terrace  or  projection  of  unequal  height,  from  which 
you  enjoy  down  the  open  valley  the  loveliest  variety  of  pros- 
pect, in  river,  plain,  mountain,  castle,  and  hamlet.  By  one  of 
those  great  calamities,  which  so  often  overwhelm  the  Swiss  vil- 
lages, this  thriving  little  town  has  been  but  recently  destroyed 
by  a  conflagration.  No  man  can  measure  the  distress  which 
must  fall  upon  the  inhabitants  ;  indeed,  there  seems  no  possible 
resource,  by  which  they  could  recover  from  so  desolating  a  blow. 
It  is  most  melancholy  to  think  of  the  misery  that  must  be  en- 
dured by  them. 

The  romantic  country  through  which  we  have  now  been  tra- 
velling possesses  more  remembrances  of  feudal  tyranny  and  war 
in  the  half-ruined  castles,  so  thickly  scattered  along  the  Rhine- 
vales,  than  any  other  part  of  Switzerland.  Sometimes  they  can 
scarcely  be  distinguished  from  the  rocks  on  which  they  are  built, 
they  have  become  so  storm-beaten,  old,  and  moss-grown.  Some  of 
them  surmount  the  crags  in  such  picturesque  boldness,  apparently 
inaccessible  and  impregnable,  that  you  wonder  both  how  they 
were  constructed,  and  how  they  were  conquered.  They  are 
remnants  of  a  despotic,  warlike,  social  state,  like  the  huge  fossil 
remains  of  a  past  world  of  all-devouring  monsters.  The  land- 
scapes commanded  by  them  are  scenes  of  the  greatest  grandeur 
and  beauty,  though  that  was  the  element  least  thought  of  in  their 
construction.  Now  the  traveller  winds  his  way  along,  and  thinks 
of  the  powerful  spirit  of  beauty  in  Nature,  which  has  subdued 
them  to  herself  in  their  decay,  and  dropping  a  veil  of  lone  and 
melancholy  grandeur  over  them,  has  enshrined  the  forms  of  men's 
tyranny  for  the  delight  of  man's  imagination. 


CHAP,  xxxix.]  HEART  'IN  THE  UNIVERSE.  179 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

Terrific  grandeur  of  the  Splugen. — The  VIA  MALA. — Creation  as  a 
Teacher  of  God. 

Is  it  not  perfectly  true,  that  everything  which  is  to  have  power 
over  man,  must  come  to  him  through  a  human  heart,  must  have 
the  tone  of  the  heart  ?  To  get  within  him,  it  must  proceed  from 
within  some  one  else  ;  all  that  is  merely  external  is  cold,  unap- 
pealing, lifeless.  This  is  the  case  indeed  with  man's  works,  but 
not  with  God's.  There  is  never  an  object  in  God's  creation,  but 
speaks  at  once  to  the  heart,  as  well  as  to  the  mind,  if  the  heart 
be  prepared  to  listen.  The  universe  is  glorious,  because  God 
made  it,  and  it  speaks  of  Him.  Whatever  object  he  has  touched 
with  the  finger  of  his  power,  shall  bear  that  impress  till  he  has 
annihilated  it.  Though  it  were  but  a  withered  leaf,  driven  by 
the  whirlwind,  it  sparkles  with  his  glory.  And  there  is  as  much 
of  Him,  of  his  power  and  love,  in  a  drop  of  dew  trembling  on  a 
rose  leaf,  if  rightly  appreciated,  as  in  the  snowy  summit  of  Mont 
Blanc  burning  at  sunset. 

All  things  are  steps  or  links  for  intercourse  with  God.  Hence, 
Henry  Martyn  used  to  say,  when  tired  of  human  company  and 
its  depravity,  and  destitute  of  all  Christian  communion,  that  any- 
thing whatever  of  God's  works  was  sweet  to  him.  "  A  leaf," 
said  he,  "  is  good  company,"  for  it  brought  his  Father  near  to 
him,  and  he  could  talk  with  God. 

It  is  a  blessed,  practical,  and  not  merely  imaginative  habit  of 
mind,  by  which  the  things  of  sense  are  thus  rendered  subservient 
to  spiritual  purposes,  "  auxiliar  to  divine."  It  is  a  heavenly 
faculty,  by  which  the  hieroglyphics  of  himself  which  the  Eternal 
Being  has  deigned  to  write  with  the  finger  of  his  glory  upon 
created  things,  may  be  interpreted  and  read  in  their  splendor  and 
fulness.  The  Universe  is  a  type  of  Spiritual  Intelligence  to  the 
eye  that  reads  it  thus,  disclosing  and  reflecting  at  every  turn  the 


180  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP,  xxxix. 

knowledge  of  the  glory  of  its  Illuminating  Sun.  I  have  seen, 
says  the  Poet  Wordsworth,  in  one  of  his  most  beautiful  strains  of 
imagery, 

"  I  have  seen 

A  curious  child,  that  dwelt  upon  a  tract 
Of  inland  ground,  applying  to  his  ear 
The  convolutions  of  a  smooth-lipped  shell, 
To  which,  in  silence  hushed,  his  very  soul 
Listened  intently  ;  and  his  countenance  soon 
Brightened  with  joy  :  for  murmurings  from  within 
Were  heard,  sonorous  cadences  !  whereby 
To  his  belief  the  Monitor  expressed 
Mysterious  union  with  its  native  sea. 
E'en  such  a  shell  the  Universe  itself 
Is  to  the  ear  of  Faith." 

EXCURSION. 

The  thought  thus  beautifully  expressed  (and  it  is  an  exquisitely 
oeautiful  image)  is  but  the  reiteration  of  repeated  declarations  in  the 
Scriptures  in  regard  to  the  purpose  and  meaning  of  the  visible 
creation  of  God,  Their  line  is  gone  out  through  all  the  earth,  and 
their  words  to  the  end  of  the  world. 

In  all  God's  works  there  is  heart,  God's  heart,  for  God  is 
Love  ;  and  he  is  happy,  who  feels  this,  for  though  every  man 
sees  God  with  his  mind,  his  understanding,  no  man  sees  him  with 
the  heart,  or  hears  the  tone  of  the  heart  of  Love  in  creation, 
who  has  not  something  of  that  love  within  him.  In  man's  works, 
heart  is  the  rarest  ingredient,  the  most  precious,  the  most  costly, 
the  most  seldom  to  be  met  with.  In  God's  works,  love  is  the 
universal  element,  though  power  is  almost  the  only  element  which 
man  notices.  But  love  is  the  element  that  speaks  to  the  heart, 
and  happy  is  the  heart  that  hears  its  blissful  language. 

Hence  the  beauty  of  that  sonnet  imitated  by  Montgomery  from 
the  Italian  of  Gaetana  Passerini. 

"  If  in  the  field  I  meet  a  smiling  flower, 
Methinks  it  whispers,  '  God  created  me, 
And  I  to  Him  devote  my  little  hour, 
In  lonely  sweetness  and  humility.' 
If  where  the  forest's  darkest  shadows  lower, 
A  serpent  quick  and  venomous  I  see, 


CHAP,  xxxix.]  THE  VIA  MALA.  181 

It  seems  to  say, — '  I  too  extol  the  power 

Of  Him,  who  caused  me  at  his  will  to  be.' 

T-he  fountain  purling,  and  the  river  strong, 

The  rocks,  the  trees,  the  mountains,  raise  one  song ; 

*  Glory  to  God  !'  re-echoes  in  mine  ear : 

Faithless  were  I,  in  wilful  error  blind, 

Did  I  not  Him  in  all  his  creatures  find, 

His  voice  through  heaven  and  earth  and  ocean  hear." 


But  what  poetry  can  give  a  human  utterance  to  the  voice  that 
speaks  from  that  dread  mountain-rift  of  Switzerland,  the  Pass  of 
the  Splugen  ?  Milton  should  be  here  to  describe  it,  as  he  has 
the  war  in  heaven,  with  language,  feeling,  thought,  imagery,  all, 
as  it  were,  winged  with  red  lightning  and  impetuous  rage.  All 
the  images  of  grandeur,  power,  energy  in  nature,  Oceanic,  Ti- 
tanic, Volcanic,  the  whirlwind,  the  fiery  tempest,  the  earthquake, 
elemental  war,  deluges,  convulsions,  avalanches,  crashing  ice- 
bergs, chained  lightning,  leaping  from  crag  to  crag,  and  thunder 
bellowing  through  the  vast  and  boundless  deep,  might  be  ex- 
hausted, and  yet  fail  to  convey  to  the  mind  an  adequate  im- 
pression of  this  sublime  pass.  Four  or  five  miles  of  it  are  called 
the  VIA  MALA,  constituting  one  continued,  tortuous,  black,  jagged 
chasm,  split  through  the  stupendous  mountain  ridge  from  the 
summit  To  the  base,  in  perpendicular,  angular,  and  convoluted 
zigzag  rifts,  so  narrow  in  some  places,  that  you  could  almost  leap 
across,  yet  so  deep,  that  the  thunder  of  the  Rhine  dies  upon  the 
ear  in  struggling  and  reverberating  echoes  upwards. 

Sixteen  hundred  feet  at  least  the  precipices  in  some  places 
rise  perpendicular  to  heaven,  so  serrated  and  torn,  the  one  side 
from  the  other,  that  if  the  same  Almighty  Power  that  rent  them, 
should  spring  them  together,  they  would  shut  as  closely  as  a 
portcullis  in  its  sockets,  as  a  tomb  upon  its  lid.  Down  in  the 
depths  of  this  fearful  fissure  thunders  the  mad  river,  sometimes 
lost  from  sight  and  scarcely  audible  in  its  muffled,  subterranean, 
booming  sound,  sometimes  desperately  plunging,  sometimes 
wildly,  swiftly,  flashing  in  white  foam,  sometimes  whirling  like 
a  maelstrom. 

You  enter  upon  this  savage  pass  from  a  world  of  beauty,  from 
the  sunlit  vale  of  Domschleg,  under  the  old  Etruscan  Castle  of 


182  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.        [CHAP,  xxxix. 

Realt,  spiked  in  the  cliff  like  a  war-club,  four  hundred  feet 
above  you,  and  totally  inaccessible  on  every  side  but  one.  Pass- 
ing this  from  Thusis,  you  are  plunged  at  once  into  a  scene  of 
such  concentrated  and  deep  sublimity,  such  awe-inspiring  gran- 
deur, such  overwhelming  power,  that  you  advance  slowly  and 
solemnly,  as  if  every  crag  were  a  supernatural  being  looking  at 
you.  The  road  is  with  great  daring  carried  along  the  perpen- 
dicular face  of  crags,  being  cut  from  the  rock  where  no  living 
thing  could  have  scaled  the  mountain,  and  sometimes  it  com- 
pletely overhangs  the  abyss,  a  thousand  feet  above  the  raging 
torrent.  Now  it  pierces  the  rock,  now  it  runs  zigzag,  now  spans 
the  gorge  on  a  light  dizzy  bridge  ;  now  the  mountains  frown  on 
each  other  like  tropical  thunder-clouds  about  to  meet  and  dis- 
charge their  artillery,  and  now  you  come  upon  mighty  insulated 
crags,  thrown  wildly  together,  covered  with  fringes  of  moss  and 
shrubbery,  and  constituting  vast  masses  of  verdure. 

I  must  here  speak  of  the  folly  of  passing  through  a  scene  so 
magnificently  grand  in  any  other  way  than  leisurely  on  foot. 
My  friend  being  an  invalid,  we  took  a  barouche  at  Thusis,  and  a 
fat,  surly  guide  for  a  driver,  but  we  had  no  sooner  started,  than 
with  my  friend's  consent  I  cleared  myself  of  this  incumbrance, 
and  resumed  my  old  lonely  pilgrimage,  letting  the  carriage  pass 
on  out  of  sight  before  me.  Mr.  H.  soon  followed  my  example, 
and  I  could  see  him  now  and  then  with  his  sketch-book  in  his 
hand,  leaning  over  the  parapet,  and  endeavoring  to  transfer  with 
his  pencil  some  little  likeness  of  portions  of  the  sublime  scene. 
Now  and  then  I  got  up  with  him,  and  found  him  vexed  with  the 
impatient  hurry  of  the  coachman,  who  was  very  much  disposed 
to  drive  on  alone  without  us.  Without  me  he  did  go,  and  I  en- 
joyed the  pleasure  of  walking  back  again,  to  the  opening  of  the 
gorge  at  Thusis,  admiring  the  grand  features  of  the  scene  in  the 
reverse  order.  And  nothing  can  be  finer  than  the  effect,  where 
you  look  through  the  ravine  as  through  a  mighty  perspective, 
with  the  Realt  Castle  hanging  to  the  cliff  at  its  mouth,  and  the 
sunny  air  and  earth  expanding  in  such  contrast  with  the  frown- 
ing, gloom-invested,  tremendous  passage  behind  you.  We  leaned 
over  the  parapet,  and  by  dropping  stones  in  the  roaring  torrent 
below,  and  computing  by  our  watches  the  time  they  took  to  reach 


CHAP,  xxxix.]  PASS  OF  THE  SPLUGEN.  183 

the  water,  endeavored  to  guess  at  the  depth  of  the  chasm.  It 
was  dizzy  to  look  at  it.  The  tall  black  fir  forest  on  the  mountain 
shelves,  and  the  blasted  pines  on  inaccessible  peaks,  seemed  to 
gaze  gravely  at  us,  as  if  we  had  come  unauthorized  into  a  sanc- 
tuary of  nature  too  deep  and  awful  to  be  trodden  by  the  foot  of 
man. 

Just  after  the  entrance  from  Thusis,  the  mountain  is  pierced 
by  the  first  gallery,  at  a  point  where  of  old  the  chasm  was  im- 
passable and  never  passed.  The  peasants  gave  the  unfathomed 
profound  abyss  at  this  place  the  name  of  the  Verlohren  Loch,  or 
Lost  Gulf,  because  no  man  could  trace  it,  and  to  get  to  the  valley 
above,  they  had  to  ascend  high  mountains  from  Thusis,  and  come 
down  in  a  long  fatiguing  circuit.  After  some  hundreds  of  years, 
the  engineer  of  the  present  road,  Pocobelli,  undertook  to  cut 
through  the  overhanging  mountain  along  this  Lost  Gulf  a  dark 
tunnel  of  216  feet,  and  then  blasted  a  groove  for  a  thousand  feet 
farther,  under  the  rocky  canopy,  where  your  damage  passes  as 
on  a  shelf,  with  the  tremendous  gulf  beneath  you  at  your  left. 
Now  and  then  the  precipices  on  one  side  actually  hang  beetling 
over  the  road  on  the  other,  and  looking  up  to  heaven,  it  is  as  if 
you  gazed  out  from  the  keep  of  a  dungeon,  and  one  would  think 
you  might  almost  see  the  stars  at  noon-day,  as  from  the  bottom 
of  a  well. 

Looking  up  the  pass  from  below  the  second  bridge,  perhaps 
the  view  is  finer  than  in  any  other  part.  The  bridge  itself,  with 
the  appalling  depth  spanned  by  it,  adds  to  the  sublimity.  You 
gain  this  bridge  by  a  gallery  in  an  overhanging  projection  of  the 
mountain,  and  then  cross  to  the  other  side,  looking  down  and  up,  as 
in  the  central  position  of  the  gorge.  Owing  to  the  recent  heavy 
rain  while  we  were  at  Ragatz,  the  river  was  now  higher  than 
usual,  and  from  the  beetling  precipices  above  us  the  white 
streams,  new-born,  were  leaping  like  jets  of  foam.  We  passed 
a  most  singular  and  daring,  but  very  simple  air  bridge  that  hung 
above  us  for  the  purpose  of  getting  the  timber  from  one  side  of 
the  gulf,  where  almost  perpendicularly  it  clothes  the  mountain, 
over  to  the  road  on  the  other.  A  range  of  cables  was  suspended 
from  the  trunks  of  enormous  pines,  some  hundreds  of  feet  above 
the  road,  and  being  fastened  securely  on  the  other  side  of  the 


184  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP,  xxxix. 

gulf,  the  timber  being  cut  and  trimmed  for  the  purpose,  was  thus 
swung  high  in  its  cradle  of  air  to  the  place  of  landing  for  trans- 
portation. 

How  tremendous  would  a  falling  Avalanche  be  in  this  place  ! 
But  here  the  mountains,  one  would  think,  are  too  steep  for  the 
snow  and  ice  to  congregate  in  sufficient  masses.  In  a  dreadful 
storm  in  1834,  the  river  being  dammed  up  by  the  fragments  of 
rock  and  timber  wedged  into  the  jagged  narrow  cleft,  the  water 
rose  near  four  hundred  feet.  It  poured  down  the  gorge  as  if  an 
ocean  had  burst  into  it,  but  its  ravages  were  committed  princi- 
pally in  the  vales  above  and  below  the  Via  Mala.  At  the  village 
of  Splugen  twelve  houses  were  swept  away,  so  sudden  and  violent 
was  the  inundation,  in  some  of  which,  an  hour  before,  the  pea- 
sants had  been  quietly  seated  at  their  supper.  The  same  terrific 
storm  and  inundation  covered  some  other  of  the  valleys  with  a 
half  century  of  desolation. 

At  Andeer  I  rejoined  my  friend,  whose  care  had  provided  a 
good  dinner,  besides  making  all  arrangements  for  getting  on  to 
Splugen  for  the  night.  There  was  nothing  for  me  to  do  but  to 
sit  down  and  rest  myself.  I  had  passed  and  repassed  almost  the 
whole  of  the  Via  Mala,  and  would  have  been  glad,  if  possible,  to 
return  through  the  same  stupendous  pass  the  next  day,  but  our 
course  was  direct  for  Italy. 


CHAP.  XL.]  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  SPLUGEN.  185 


CHAPTER  XL. 

Natural  Theology  of  the  Splugen. 

Now,  dear  friend,  what  thinkest  thou  of  the  moral  of  this 
stupendous  scene  in  the  preceding  chapter  ?  Dost  thou  set  down 
this  mountain-rift,  in  thy  natural  theology,  as  a  chapter  of  the 
scars  and  vestiges  of  sin,  one  of  the  groans  of  nature  in  this 
nether  world,  wrung  out  by  man's  fall  ?  Or  is  it  to  thee  an  in- 
structive, exalting,  exciting  scene  of  Power,  magnificently  grand, 
almost  as  if  thou  hadst  witnessed  the  revealed  Arm  of  Omni- 
potence, and  lifting  thy  heart,  mind,  soul,  thy  whole  being,  up 
to  God  ? 

Methinks  you  answer,  that  if  God  meant  the  world  to  be  a 
great  solemn  palace  for  the  teaching  of  his  children,  on  the  very 
walls  of  which  there  should  be  grand  inscriptions  and  hierogly- 
phics productive  of  great  thoughts,  rousing  the  mind  from  slum- 
ber, rearing  the  imagination  with  a  noble  discipline,  he  would 
have  scattered  here  and  there  just  such  earthquake-rifts  of  power 
and  grandeur.  We  are  immortal  children  in  the  school-house 
of  our  infancy.  It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  every  scar 
on  the  face  of  Nature,  deep  entrenched  and  jagged,  is  an  imper- 
fection or  a  mark  of  wrath  ;  for  it  may  be  a  scene,  where  an 
angel  passing  by  would  stop  and  admire  it  as  a  symbol  of  God's 
power,  a  faint  comma,  as  it  were,  in  the  revelation  of  his  attri- 
butes ;  it  may  be  a  scene,  which  awakens  great  thoughts  in  an 
angel's  bosom,  as  a  hidden  lowly  daisy  does  the  more  gentle 
ones ;  the  daisy  being  a  flower,  which  an  angel  might  stop  to 
gaze  at  as  an  emblem  of  sweetness  and  humility. 

And  in  this  view,  as  a  hieroglyphic  of  Power,  this  fathomless 
dread  gorge  is  also  a  proof  of  Love.  It  was  Love  that  appointed 
it  as  an  emblem  of  Power.  So  is  the  great  wide  Sea,  and  that 
Leviathan  whom  Thou  hast  made  to  play  therein.  So  are  the 


186  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XL. 

volcanoes,  the  ice-continents,  and  the  burning  deserts.  All  may 
be  works  of  Love,  though  they  show  nothing  but  Power.  And 
even  if  it  be  Power  in  exercise  for  the  avenging  and  punishment 
of  sin,  even  then  it  is  Love ;  for  every  lesson  of  God's  wrath  is 
Love,  and  where  there  is  sin,  wrath  is  a  proof  of  Love,  of  Love 
saving  by  wrath  the  lookers  on  from  rushing  into  wrath. 

There  are  places  in  our  world,  where  we  may  suppose  that 
beings  from  another  planet,  conversant  with  the  history  of  ours, 
would  stop  and  gaze  solemnly,  and  speak  to  each  other  of  God's 
retributive  justice.'  Such  is  that  black  dead  sea  with  arid  shores, 
that  rolls  where  Sodom  stood.  If  angels  went  to  take  Lot  from 
the  city  that  was  to  be  burned,  how  often,  when  angels  pass  the 
place,  scarred  now  with  retribution,  do  they  think  with  shudder- 
ing of  the  evil  of  sin  !  Yet  even  that  retribution  was  invested 
with  the  atmosphere  of  Love,  and  had  not  God  been  Love,  he 
might  have  let  Sodom  stand,  he  might  have  let  the  guilty  go  un- 
punished. If  God  were  not  Love,  then  there  might  be  no  future 
retribution  of  misery  to  the  wicked.  But  justice  only  does  the 
work  of  Love,  and  Love  works  for  the  purity  and  blessedness  of 
the  universe.  Where  there  is  sin,  Love  without  wrath  would  only 
be  connivance  with  iniquity. 

It  is  a  fact  therefore,  that  in  your  natural  theology,  sin  being 
given,  pain  is  absolutely  necessary,  in  order  to  prove  the  benevo- 
lence of  God.  So  that  the  problem  and  the  answer  might  be 
stated  thus :  Given,  the  fact  of  sin,  how  will  you  demonstrate 
that  God  is  a  good  being  ?  Answer :  Only  by  proving  that  God 
punishes  sin.  In  this  view,  the  misery  with  which  earth  is  filled, 
so  far  from  being  a  difficulty  in  God's  government,  goes  to  esta- 
blish it  as  God's.  A  malevolent  being  would  have  let  men  sin 
without  making  them  miserable ;  therefore,  God  could  not  be 
proved  benevolent  unless,  in  a  world  of  sin,  there  were  the  in- 
gredient of  misery. 

Then  as  to  the  other  problem :  Given,  a  race  of  sinful  crea- 
tures :  What  sort  of  a  world  shall  they  be  placed  in  ?  You 
would  certainly  answer,  Not  a  world  of  unmingled  softness 
and  beauty,  not  a  Paradise  of  enjoyment,  not  the  early  and  un- 
diseased  Eden  of  innocence  and  love,  but  a  world,  in  which  there 
shall  be  enough  of  storm  and  tempest,  enough  of  painful  climate, 


CHAP.  XL.]  CREATION  AS  A  TEACHER.  187 

and  of  the  curse  of  barrenness,  and  of  the  element  of  disaster 
and  ruin,  to  show  God's  frown  and  evident  curse  for  sin  ;  but 
yet  enough  of  the  means  of  enjoyment,  if  rightly  used,  to  draw 
men  to  industry,  to  show  God's  kindness  and  love,  and  enough 
of  beauty  and  sublimity  to  impress,  delight  and  educate  the 
soul.  It  is  just  a  world  so  mingled,  a  world  scarred  with  evil, 
as  well  as  bright  with  good,  that  we,  a  sinful  race,  do  really 
inhabit. 

The  view  which  men  take  of  the  argument  for  the  goodness 
of  God  from  the  works  of  creation  will  vary  much  according  to 
their  own  states  of  mind.  A  man  suffering  the  consequences  of 
sin,  or  a  man  under  a  cloud  of  care,  and  destitute  of  faith,  or  a 
man  burdened  with  present  miseries,  without  any  consolation 
from  divine  grace,  would  see  things  very  differently  from  a  calm 
mind,  a  quiet  mind,  a  happy  mind,  a  mind  at  peace  with  God. 
TJbeJUniyerse  takes  -its-  coloring  from  the  hue  of  our  own  souls  ; 
and.so,  in  a  measure,  does  the  solution  of  the  question  whether 
the  Universe,  so  far  as  we  are  acquainted  with  it,  proves  a  God 
of  love.  A  heart  that  loves  God,  and  rejoices  in  the  happiness 
that  .fills  the  world  around  it,  will  say  instinctively  that  it  does, 
and  will  sympathize  with  God  in  his  own  feelings  of  delight  in 
the  happiness  of  creation.  A  misanthropic  heart,  a  sinful  heart,  \ 
a  rebellious  heart,  will  perhaps  be  disposed  to  say  No,  or  will 
overlook,  and  cannot  understand  and  appreciate,  the  power  of  the  t 
argument.  For  a  mind  disposed  to  make  difficulty,  plenty  of 
difficulty  exists.  For  a  mind  humbly  disposed  to  learn  of  God, 
there  is  confirmation  of  the  soul's  faith,  even  in  difficulties  them- 
selves, which  are  as  buttresses  supporting  the  spire  that  sublimely 
points  to  heaven. 


188  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLI. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

Pass  of  the  Splugen  into  Italy.— The  Cardinell  and  Macdonald's  army.— 
Campo  Dolcino  and  Chiavenna. 

FROM  the  little  wild  village  of  Splugen,  overhanging  the  young 
Rhine-river,  where  there  is  an  excellent  mountain  inn,  having 
supped,  slept,  and  breakfasted,  4711  feet  above  the  sea,  you  take 
your  departure  at  pleasure  for  either  of  the  two  Alpine  passes  into 
Italy,  the  Splugen  or  the  Bernardin.  Both  of  them  carry  you  across 
scenes  of  the  greatest  wildness,  winter,  and  sublimity,  into  almost 
perpetual  loveliness  and  summer.  You  pass  the  snowy  recesses, 
where  Nature  holds  the  nursling  rivers  to  her  bosom  of  glaciers, 
feeding  her  infants  with  ice  ;  you  go  down  into  Elysian  fields, 
where  the  brooks  sparkle  and  dance,  like  laughing  children  amidst 
flowers  and  sunshine.  The  whirlwind  of  war  has  poured  across 
each  of  these  passes,  in  the  most  terrific  of  the  seasons,  driven  by 
the  French  General  Lecourbe  at  the  Bernardin,  and  by  Macdo- 
nald  at  the  perilous  gorge  of  the  Cardinell.  They  marched  in 
the  midst  of  fierce  tempests  and  falling  avalanches,  that  swept 
whole  phalanxes  as  into  the  depths  of  hell,  as  if  the  avenging 
genii  of  Switzerland  were  up  in  arms,  the  ministers  of  wrath 
against  the  oppressor.  The  pass  of  the  Splugen,  rising  more  than 
2000  feet  above  the  village  of  Splugen,  and  6814  above  the  sea, 
brings  you  out  at  Chiavenna  and  the  Lake  of  Como.  That  of 
the  Bernardin,  rising  7115  feet  above  the  sea,  and  about  2400 
above  Splugen,  opens  upon  Bellinzona  and  the  Lakes  of  Mag- 
giore  and  Lugano. 

We  take  the  Splugen  road,  and  following  it  through  four  miles 
and  three  quarters  of  laborious  ascent,  come  to  the  narrow  moun- 
tain ridge,  which  traces  the  boundary  line  between  Switzerland 
and  Lombardy.  The  steepest  ascent  is  effected  by  a  great  num- 
ber of  zigzags,  so  gradual,  that  they  turn  almost  parallel  on  one 
another.  The  pedestrian  will  do  well  to  scale  across  them,  as 


CHAP.  XLL]  PASS  OF  THE  SPLUGEN.  189 

one  might  cut  a  coil  of  rope  across  the  centre,  instead  of  running 
round  it ;  and  climbing  from  crag  to  crag,  he  will  speedily  see 
his  carriage  and  friends  far  below  him,  toiling  slowly  along,  while 
he  himself  seems  to  be  mounting  into  heaven.  The  laborers 
were  at  work  upon  the  road  above  these  zigzags,  constructing  a 
tunnel  or  gallery  for  safety  from  the  avalanches,  so  as  to  let  them 
shoot  over  the  roof  into  the  gulf  below  without  harm  to  the  pas- 
sengers. But  a  man  would  not  wish  to  be  present  either  in  the 
tunnel  or  on  the  zigzags,  when  an  avalanche  thunders  down. 
One  would  suppose  it  would  sweep  gallery  and  all  before  it,  tear- 
ing a  trench  in  the  mountain,  like  the  furrow  of  a  cannon  ball 
across  rough  ground. 

You  reach  the  summit  of  the  pass,  the  highest  ridge,  and  as 
usual  there  is  little  or  no  intermediate  space,  no  debateable  level, 
but  you  descend  as  instantly,  almost,  as  from  one  side  of  the  steep 
roof  of  a  house  to  the  other.  The  fierce  wind  cutting  your  face, 
and  sometimes  blowing  as  if  it  would  hurl  you  back  bodily  into 
the  inn  at  Splugen,  or  the  thundering  Rhine,  tells  you  at  once, 
as  well  as  the  extreme  cold,  when  you  have  reached  the  culmi- 
nating point,  for  you  get  nothing  of  Italy  here  except  an  Aus- 
trian bayonet,  sharp  and  watchful  as  the  ice-breeze.  Perhaps 
'you  may  have  been  expecting  to  meet  the  warm  breath  of  the 
South,  and  to  look  down  from  the  peaks  of  winter  into  the  ver- 
dure of  sunny  Italian  landscapes.  As  yet  the  Italian  side  is  as 
savage  as  the  Swiss,  and  there  is  an  element  of  gloom  besides, 
almost  sensible  in  the  air  itself,  and  visible  as  a  symbol,  in  the 
awful  desolation  around  you, — grim  despotism,  vigilant,  insolent, 
remorseless.  So  pass  on,  if  you  please,  and  enter  some  of  its 
guard-houses,  built  as  much  like  dread  prisons  as  may  be,  and 
where  you  feel  as  if  in  prison  yourself,  while  your  passport  and 
your  baggage  are  under  examination.  How  different  this,  from 
the  pleasant,  hospitable  reception  on  the  Grand  St.  Bernard  ! 

The  old  road  from  this  point  passed  through  the  terrific  gorge 
of  the  Cardinell,  where  Macdonald,  at  the  will  of  Napoleon,  un- 
dertook a  five  days'  fight  with  the  rage  of  the  elements.  It  was 
winter  and  storm,  but  there  was  no  retreating.  He  advanced  with 
his  army  in  the  face  of  a  cannonade  of  avalanches,  on  the  brink  of 
unfathomable  abysses,  where  many  a  score  of  despairing  men  and 


190  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLI. 

struggling  horses,  buffeted  and  blinded  by  the  wings  of  the  tempest, 
and  wrapped  in  a  winding  sheet  of  ice  and  snow,  were  launched  off 
by  the  crashing  mountain  masses,  and  buried  for  ever.  Over  this 
gorge  the  avalanches  hang  balanced  and  brooding,  so  that  a  whis- 
per may  precipitate  them.  They  have  sometimes  fallen  like  a 
thunderbolt,  and  swept  away  one  traveller,  leaving  another  in 
safety  by  his  side.  The  mail  carriers  have  seen  their  horses 
shot  into  the  abyss,  not  indeed  from  under  them,  but  when  they 
had  dismounted  for  an  instant.  It  seems  to  be  a  pass  shrouded 
in  more  absolute  terrors  than  any  in  Switzerland. 

There  are  indeed  more  avalanches  annually  in  this  Canton  of 
the  Grisons  than  in  any  other,  and  a  greater  number  of  lives  lost 
every  year.  There  is  no  avoiding  the  peril,  because  no  fore- 
seeing when  it  may  fall.  A  story  is  told,  with  all  the  evi- 
dence of  truth,  of  the  whole  village  of  Rueras  in  1749  being 
swept  off  by  an  avalanche  so  immense,  taking  such  vast  deep 
masses  of  earth  all  at  once,  that  the  inmates  in  some  of  the  houses 
were  not  even  awakened  by  the  rush  of  the  mountain,  and  when 
they  did  awake  buried,  lay  abed  and  wondered  that  the  night  was 
so  long  !  Tired  mountaineers  sleep  very  soundly,  but  I  do  not 
demand  credit  for  this,  though  it  is  not  absolutely  incredible. 
There  are  incidents  enough,  terrible  and  grand,  and  escapes 
almost  miraculous,  which  do  not  so  tax  faith's  faculties. 

In  the  passage  of  Macdonald's  army  through  this  frightful  re- 
gion, so  far  from  being  surprised  at  the  number  of  men  swept  to 
destruction,  we  only  wonder  that  whole  regiments  were  not  buried 
at  once  ;  the  amazement  is,  that  passing  in  a  winter's  storm,  with 
avalanches  repeatedly  shooting  through  these  columns,  so  large  a 
portion  of  the  army  escaped,  not  more  than  a  hundred  men,  and 
as  many  horses,  being  lost.  One  of  the  drummers  of  the  army, 
having  been  shot  in  a  snow  bank  from  the  avalanche  into  the 
frightful  gulf,  and  baring  struggled  forth  alive,  but  out  of  sight 
and  reach  of  his  comrades,  was  heard  beating  his  drum  for  hours 
in  the  abyss,  vainly  expecting  rescue.  Poor  fellow  !  the  roll  of 
his  martial  instrument  had  often  roused  his  fellow  soldiers  with 
fierce  courage  to  the  attack,  but  now  it  was  his  own  funeral  march 
that  he  was  beating,  and  it  sounded  like  a  death  summons  for  the 
whole  army  into  this  frightful  Hades,  if  another  avalanche  should 


CHAP.  XLI.]  GORGE  OF  THE  CARDINELL.  191 

thunder  down.  There  was  no  reaching  him,  and  death  with  icy 
fingers  stilled  the  roll  of  the  drum,  and  beat  out  the  last  pulsations 
of  hope  and  life  in  his  bosom  ! 

Macdonald  was  struggling  on  to  Marengo.  The  army  suffered 
more  from  fatigue  and  terror  in  the  passage  than  in  all  their  bat- 
tles. Had  they  perished  in  the  gorge  of  the  Cardinell,  the  victory 
at  Marengo  would  perhaps  have  been  changed  into  a  defeat,  which 
itself  might  have  changed  the  whole  course  of  modern  history. 
What  might  not  have  been,  had  such  and  such  things  not  been ! 
and  what  mighty  things  might  never  have  been,  if  such  and  such 
things  had  been.  Give  me  but  the  power  to  have  put  a  pin  where 
I  might  choose,  twice  in  the  last  forty  years,  and  I  could  have  re- 
volutionized all  Europe.  IF,  is  a  great  word.  How  many  at 
this  moment  are  saying,  If  i  had  but  done  so  and  so,  or,  if  this 
circumstance  were  only  so,  or,  if  I  had  but  avoided  doing  so  and 
so  !  Sometimes,  ifs  are  fearful  things,  especially  on  a  dying  bed, 
when  they  balance  the  soul  between  hell  and  heaven.  One  half 
the  sentence  presents  it  at  the  gates  of  Paradise,  the  other  thrusts 
it  through  the  portals  of  the  world  of  wo. 

We  pass  now  above  the  village  of  Isola,  with  the  deserted  and 
unused  zigzags  leading  to  it,  which  you  overlook  completely,  as 
if  you  could  jump  down  upon  the  clustered  houses.  The  labori- 
ously constructed  roads  and  great  galleries  tell  you,  if  you  are  at 
all  sceptical,  what  dangers  lie  in  wait  from  the  avalanches,  which 
you  find  it  difficult  to  conceive,  when  crossing  the  pass  in  the 
depth  of  summer  and  in  fine  weather.  A  space  of  about  three 
thousand  feet,  where  the  avalanches  roar  across  the  passage  every 
year,  and  would  plough  up  an  open  road  like  the  wedge  of  the 
descending  pyramids  of  Dgizeh,  is  nearly  covered  with  these 
massive  galleries,  one  of  them  700  feet  in  length,  a  second  642 
feet  long,  and  a  still  longer  gallery  of  1530  feet  by  fifteen  high 
and  wide.  The  solid  smooth  roofs  slope  outwards,  and  the  travel- 
ler beneath  them,  if  he  is  there  at  a  proper  time,  may  hear  above 
him  the  sublime  roar  of  the  descending  masses  of  ice  and  snow, 
impetuously  sweeping  the  roof  and  shooting  into  the  gulf  like  a 
tornado. 

The  road  crosses  the  stream  of  the  Medissimo,  at  the  very  verge 
of  the  precipice,  where  the  little  river  takes  a  sheer  plunge,  of 


192  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLI. 

near  800  feet  high,  down  into  the  vale  of  the  Lira,  making  one 
of  the  most  truly  magnificent  cascades  in  all  Switzerland.  But 
you  should  see  it  when  the  stream  is  well  swollen  with  rains. 
You  command  the  whole  fall  from  above  ;  you  have  also  the  most 
admirable  points  of  view  sideways  and  half  in  front,  as  you  wind 
your  way  beyond  the  river  down  into  the  Vale,  by  the  rocky  zig- 
zags turning  and  returning  upon  the  scene.  It  is  indescribably 
beautiful. 

If  the  day  itself  did  not  begin  to  be  cloudy  and  severe,  you 
would  have,  even  thus  far  up  the  mountains,  a  taste  of  the  sweet 
air  of  Italy,  as  well  as  an  experience  of  its  bitter,  desolate  and 
dirty  inns.  Its  golden  delicious  names  begin  to  winnow  the  air 
like  winged  words  upon  your  ear  at  every  step,  and  from  the  vil- 
lage of  Splugen,  with  its  clattering  consonants,  and  its  comfortable, 
excellent  hotel,  you  pass  to  the  village  of  Campo  Dolcino,  a  paradi- 
saical name,  a  dirty  hamlet,  and  an  execrable  inn.  This  was  the 
Post  inn,  and  here  we  had  been  promised  a  new  carriage  and 
horses,  not  being  able,  on  any  condition,  to  persuade  our  obstinate 
or  faint-hearted  young  driver  from  Splugen  to  carry  us  in  to  Chi- 
avenna.  The  governors  of  the  stable  at  Campo  Dolcino  either 
could  not  or  would  not  provide  us  a  voiture,  whereupon,  as  we 
would  have  ridden  a  rail  rather  than  stay  in  this  dram-drink- 
ing, oath-swearing  place  over  the  sabbath  (and  it  was  now 
Saturday  evening)  a  peasant's  hay  cart,  that  stood  in  a  melancholy 
out-house,  was  harnessed,  the  postillions  and  horses  of  two 
carriages  that  had  just  arrived  on  the  way  to  Splugen  were  ap- 
pended, and  in  this  sumptuous  style  we  set  out  for  Chiavenna. 
We  came  into  Italy  in  the  fog  and  rain,  and  into  Chiavenna  upon 
the  vertebrae  of  a  cart,  drawn  by  two  horses,  with  six  more  fast- 
ened behind,  and  three  yellow  and  red-coated  postillions  on  the 
seat  in  front  of  us,  with  their  brazen  music-breaking  horns  of 
office  slung  over  their  shoulders. 

The  pass  down  the  valley  is  the  very  sublimity  of  desolation, 
a  chaos  of  huge  blocks  of  rock  from  the  surrounding  mountains, 
thrown  and  piled  disorderly  from  age  to  age,  in  squares  and 
parallelograms,  and  now  covered  partially,  and  richly  veiled,  with 
mosses  and  verdure.  The  rock  is  of  a  kind  that  reddens  in  the 
air  after  long  exposure,  so  that  the  color  of  the  scene  is  dark  and 


CHAP.  XLI.]  CHIAVENNA.  193 


rich,  and  the  many  magnificent  chestnut  trees,  with  their  thick,  lux- 
uriant foliage,  amidst  the  precipices,  along  which  the  road  winds 
downwards,  make  the  landscape  most  impressive  for  its  solemnity 
and  beauty.  Two  or  three  miles  before  arriving  at  Chiavenna, 
this  narrow  vale  of  Lira  opens  out  into  an  expansive  combination 
of  the  lovely  luxuriance  of  Italy  with  the  grandeur  of  Switzer- 
land \  glorious  mountains  broken  into  picturesque  red  crags, 
embosomed  in  foliage,  so  thajt  the  sun,  shining  on  them  with  the 
slant  golden  light  of  setting  day,  turns  them  into  jasper ;  green 
vineyards  purpled  with  the  luscious  ripe  grapes  ;  overshadowing 
chestnuts,  leafy  figs,  pomegranates,  mulberries,  almonds,  and 
everywhere  the  record  of  an  inexhaustible  life  and  fertility,  in 
the  richest,  most  consummate  vegetation.  Here  lies,  romantically 
situated,  on  the  river  Maira,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Val  Bregaglia, 
under  the  overawing  mountains,  the  Italian  town  of  Chiavenna. 

You  drive  up  to  the  Tnn  Conradi,  if  you  come  genteelly  and 
properly  into  the  town ;  but  we  had  to  walk  as  if  we  had  dropped 
from  the  clouds,  for  our  roguish  postillions  were  afraid  their 
owners  should  see  them  with  the  peasant's  hay-cart,  and  kindness 
to  them,  as  well  as  respect  for  ourselves,  prevented  us  from 
insisting  that  they  should  parade  our  queer  establishment  in  the 
great  square,  so  we  got  out  at  a  proper  distance  and  threaded  our 
way  to  the  hotel,  leaving  them  to  follow  with  our  luggage.  Hard 
by  the  inn  rises  a  most  romantic  ruined  old  castle,  on  the  summit 
of  a  grottoed  cliff,  and  a  few  steps  from  it  are  the  antique  ecclesi- 
astical structures  of  the  town,  among  which  the  most  singular  are 
a  couple  of  human  skeleton-houses,  with  grated  doors,  through 
which  you  see  piled  innumerable  skulls  and  cross-bones  grinning 
at  you  '}  an  order  of  architecture  more  antique  and  solemn  than 
any  other  in  the  world.  The  priests  are  busy  with  their  pro- 
cessions, the  bells  are  ringing,  the  world  is  singing,  and  the  whole 
population,  especially  of  women,  seem  to  be  church  choristers. 
The  two  guardian  genii  of  Italy  are  perpetually  at  work  around 
you,  Music  and  Superstition. 

PART  n.  14 


194  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLII. 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

The  Buried  Town  of  Pleurs. 

» 

THERE  are  in  Chiavenna  about  three  thousand  people.  The 
great  interest  of  the  surrounding  region  is  in  the  beauty  of  the 
Valley  of  Bregaglia,  above  the  town  towards  the  pass  of  the  Ma- 
loggia,  most  grand  and  beautiful.  About  an  hour's  walk  brings 
you  to  a  spot,  which  was  to  me  one  of  the  most  interesting  in  all  my 
rambles,  the  spot  where  the  village  of  Pleurs,  with  about  twenty- 
five  hundred  inhabitants,  was  overwhelmed  in  the  year  1618,  by 
the  falling  of  a  mountain.  This  terrific  avalanche  took  place  in 
the  night,  and  was  so  sudden,  complete,  and  overwhelming,  that 
not  only  every  soul  perished,  but  no  trace  whatever  of  the  village 
or  of  any  of  the  remains  of  the  inhabitants  could  afterwards  be 
discovered.  The  mountain  must  have  buried  the  town  to  the 
depth  of  several  hundred  feet.  Though  the  all-veiling  gentleness 
of  nature  has  covered  both  the  mountain  that  stood,  and  that 
which  fell,  with  luxuriant  vegetation,  and  even  a  forest  of  chest- 
nuts has  grown  amidst  the  wilderness  of  the  rocks,  yet  the  vast- 
ness  and  the  wreck  of  the  avalanche  are  clearly  distinguishable. 
Enormous  angular  blocks  of  rocks  are  strewn  and  piled  in  the 
wfldest  confusion  possible,  some  of  them  being  at  least  sixty  feet 
high.  The  soil  has  so  accumulated  in  the  space  of  two  hundred 
years,  that  on  the  surface  of  these  ruins  there  are  smooth,  grassy 
fields  at  intervals,  and  the  chestnuts  grow  everywhere.  A  few 
clusters  of  miserable  hamlets,  like  Indians'  or  gipsies'  wigwams, 
are  also  scattered  over  the  grave  of  the  former  village,  and  there 
is  a  forlorn  looking  chapel  that  might  serve  as  a  convent  for 
banditti.  The  mountains  rise  on  either  side  to  a  great  height  in 
most  picturesque  peaks  and  outlines,  and  the  valley  is  filled  up 
with  a  snowy  range  at  the  north. 

On  this  spot  I  read   with    great   pleasure  the    Benedicite  in 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  which  my  friend  lent  me.     O  ye 


CHAP.  XLII.]  THE  BURIED  CITY.  195 

mountains  and  all  hills,  praise  the  Lord !  There  is  but  one  verse 
in  it  inconsistent  with  the  sublimity  of  the  whole,  and  that  is  the 
appeal  to  Ananias,  Azarias,  and  Misael,  which  is  as  if  the  bel- 
lows of  an  organ  had  burst  in  the  middle  of  an  anthem  ;  he  that 
can  tell  me  what  it  means,  will  have  more  knowledge  than  any 
man  I  have  yet  encountered.  My  friend,  though  an  English 
Clergyman,  could  not  solve  the  problem.  O  Ananias,  Azarias, 
and  Misael,  praise  ye  the  Lord  !  Who  are,  or  were,  these  peo- 
ple, or  are  they  saints  or  angels,  or  how  came  their  names  in  the 
Benedicite  ?  The  Romish  Missal,  from  which  it  was  doubtless 
copied,  may  perhaps  tell. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Maira,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  cas- 
cades in  the  world  was  falling  from  the  mountains.  There  are 
four  falls,  close  upon  the  foam  of  one  another,  two  higher  up,  and 
two  lower  down.  Seen  against  the  setting  sun,  nothing  could  be 
more  beautiful.  Always  falling,  always  falling,  only  beautiful 
by  falling  and  being  lost !  Yet  not  lost,  for  all  streams  reach  the 
sea,  and  so  it  is  an  emblem  of  those  acts  of  faith  and  self-sacrifice, 
in  which  men  lose  their  lives  and  find  them,  making  as  it  were  a 
perilous  loss,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  which  is  admired  of 
the  world,  and  rewarded  in  God  for  ever. 

It  was  a  solemn  thing  to  stand  upon  the  tomb  of  twenty-five 
hundred  beings,  all  sepulchred  alive.  No  efforts  have  ever  dis- 
covered a  trace  of  the  inhabitants,  not  a  bone,  not  a  vestige.  The 
mountain  that  covers  them  shall  be  thrown  off  at  the  resurrection, 
but  never  before.  It  was  the  Mount  Conto  that  fell ;  the  half 
that  was  left  behind  still  rises  abrupt  and  perpendicular  over  the 
mighty  grave.  It  is  singular  enough  that  the  town  was  situated 
itself  on  the  tomb  of  another  village,  which  had  previously  been 
overwhelmed  by  a  similar  catastrophe.  For  that  reason  it  was 
named  Pleurs,  The  Town  of  Tears.  From  the  times  of  old,  as 
often  as  in  Italy  one  city  has  been  buried,  another  has  been  built 
upon  the  very  same  spot,  except  indeed  in  the  case  of  Pompeii,  so 
that  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  the  same  earth  to  be  leased  to 
the  dead  and  the  living. 

The  Town  of  Tears  was  one  of  the  gayest,  richest,  laughing, 
pleasure-loving,  joyous  little  cities  in  the  kingdom.  It  might 
have  been  named  Tears  because  it  had  laughed  till  it  cried.  It 


196  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLII. 

had  palaces  and  villas  of  rich  gentlemen  and  nobles  ;  for  its 
lovely,  romantic  situation,  and  pleasant  air,  attracted  the  wealthy 
families  to  spend  especially  the  summer  months  in  so  delightful  a 
retreat.  I  wonder  that  no  poet  or  romance- writer  has  made  this 
scene  the  subject  of  a  thrilling  story.  The  day  before  the  lid  of 
their  vast  sepulchre  fell,  the  people  were  as  happy  and  secure  as  those 
of  Pompeii,  the  night  of  the  Vesuvian  eruption — and  much  more 
innocent.  There  had  been  great  rains.  Vast  masses  of  gravel  were 
loosened  from  the  mountains,  and  overwhelmed  some  rich  vineyards. 
The  herdsmen  came  hurrying  in  to  give  notice  that  strange  move- 
ments had  been  taking  place,  with  alarming  symptoms  of  some  great 
convulsion  ;  that  there  were  great  fissures  and  rents  forming  in  the 
mountain,  and  masses  of  rock  falling,  just  as  the  cornice  of  a  build- 
ing might  topple  down  in  fragments,  before  the  whole  wall  tum- 
bles. The  cattle  were  seized  with  terror,  and  probably  perceiving 
the  trembling  of  the  ground  beneath  their  feet,  fled  bellowing 
from  the  region. 

Nevertheless,  there  was  no  dream  of  what  was  to  follow.  The 
storm  cleared  brightly  away,  the  sun  rose  and  set  on  the  fourth 
of  September,  as  a  bridegroom  ;  the  people  lay  down  securely  to 
rest,  or  pursued  their  accustomed  festivities  into  the  bosom  of  the 
night,  with  the  plans  for  to-morrow  ;  but  that  night  the  mountain 
fell  and  destroyed  them  all.  At  midnight  a  great  roar  was  heard 
far  over  the  country,  and  a  shock  felt  as  of  an  earthquake,  and 
then  a  solemn  stillness  followed  ;  in  the  morning  a  cloud  of  dust 
and  vapor  hung  over  the  valley,  and  the  bed  of  the  Maira  was 
dry.  The  river  had  been  stopped  by  the  falling  of  the  mountain 
across  its  channel,  and  the  town  of  Pleurs  with  the  village  of  Celano 
had  disappeared  for  ever.  All  the  excavations  of  all  the  laborers  that 
could  be  collected,  failed  to  discover  a  single  vestige  of  the  inhabit- 
ants or  of  their  dwelling-places.  The  miners  could  not  reach  the 
cathedral  for  its  gold  and  jewels,  and  there  they  lie  at  rest, 
churches  and  palaces,  villas  and  hovels,  priests,  peasants,  and 
nobles,  where  neither  gold,  nor  love,  nor  superstition,  nor  piety, 
can  raise  them  from  their  graves,  or  have  any  power  over  them. 

How  many  a  tale  this  green  and  rocky  mound  doth  tell  of  ex- 
pectations blasted,  of  plans  suddenly  broken,  of  domestic  trage- 
dies and  comedies  interrupted  in  the  midst ; — of  pleasure  and 


CHAP.  XLII.]  LESSONS  OF  DEATH.  197 

prayer,  of  loss  and  gain,  of  poverty  and  wealth,  of  sickness  and 
health,  all  overtaken  at  once  ;  the  dying  and  the  living  cut  off 
together,  their  death  and  burial  being  one  and  the  same.  They 
did  eat,  they  drank,  they  were  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage, 
as  in  the  day  when  Noah  entered  into  the  ark.  The  gate  of  the 
Eternal  World  received  a  crowd  of  spirits  ;  but  that  gate  is  al- 
ways crowded,  for  the  stream  of  life  is  not  more  full  and  uninter- 
rupted on  earth,  than  it  is  deep  and  ceaseless  in  its  passage  out  of 
Time  into  Eternity.  And  not  a  man  in  all  this  tide  of  unbroken 
life  (for  dying  is  not  ceasing  to  live  but  living  anew),  knows  the 
hour  of  his  destiny,  though  the  tide  is  as  immutable,  as  fixed, .as 
regular,  as  the  laws  of  the  Universe,  as  Eternity  itself.  There- 
fore, sudden  deaths,  deaths  by  tempests,  by  avalanches,  by  "  the 
all  dreaded  thunder-stroke,"  deaths  at  a  word,  and  deaths  without 
detected  cause,  in  the  midst  of  health,  deaths  like  the  burning  of 
a  forest,  and  deaths  like  the  dropping  of  the  autumn  leaves,  all 
have  their  place  calmly  and  quietly  in  this  tide  of  life,  and  as 
little  interrupt  or  agitate  its  flow,  as  the  ripples  that  die  beneath 
the  weary  worn  out  winds  upon  its  surface. 

Almost  as  fixed  as  the  certainty  of  death,  and  the  uncertainty 
of  the  time  of  death,  is  the  habit  of  procrastination  in  preparing 
for  death.  Men  still  reckon  on  time,  amidst  all  warnings,  and  on 
a  better  time.  "  The  lying  spirit,"  remarks  John  Foster,  "  which 
had  promised  to  meet  them  at  the  assigned  spot,  to  conduct  them 
thenceforward  towards  heaven,  appears  not  on  the  ground  when 
they  arrive  there,  unless  to  tell  them  that  another  stage,  still  fur- 
ther on,  will  be  more  advantageous  for  commencing  the  enter- 
prise." Youth,  especially,  deems  it  not  probable  that  life  will 
terminate  in  youth.  And  yet,  many  die  young,  and  vanish  as 
suddenly  as  a  broken  dream,  so  that  there  is  no  reliance  to  be 
placed  even  on  the  most  favorable  account  of  probabilities. 

"  And,"  says  Foster,  with  that  thoughtful  and  imperative  so- 
lemnity, for  which  his  sentences  are  often  so  remarkable,  "  a  few 
examples,  or  even  one,  of  the  treacherousness  of  the  calcu- 
lation, should  suffice  to  warn  you  not  to  hazard  anything  of  great 
moment  on  so  menacing  an  uncertainty.  For,  in  all  reason, 
when  an  infinitely  important  interest  is  depending,  a  mere  possi- 
bility that  your  allotment  may  prove  to  be  like  theirs,  is  to  be  held 


198  PILGRIM   OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLII. 

of  far  greater  weight  on  the  one  side,  than  the  alleged  probability 
of  the  contrary  is  on  the  other.  The  possibility  of  dying  impre- 
pared,  takes  all  the  value  from  even  the  highest  probability  that 
there  will  be  prolonged  time  to  prepare  :  plainly,  because  there 
is  no  proportion  between  the  fearfulness  of  such  a  hazard,  and  the 
precariousness  of  such  a  dependence.  So  that  one  day  of  the 
certain  hazard  may  be  safely  asserted  to  be  a  greater  thing  against 
you,  than  whole  imaginary  years  promised  you-by  the  probability, 
ought  to  be  accounted  of  value  for  you." 

Many  a  man  is  brought  to  the  gates  of  death,  and  even  of  sud- 
den death,  and  yet  forgets  it  at  once,  so  soon  as  he  is  brought  back 
again.  How  beautiful  is  that  old  ode  of  Mason  expressing  a  bet- 
ter purpose  in  a  like  deliverance. 

Methought  Death  laid  his  hands  on  me, 

And  did  his  prisoner  bind  ; 
And  by  the  sound,  methought  I  heard 

His  Master's  feet  behind. 
Methought  I  stood  upon  the  shore, 

And  nothing  could  I  see, 
But  the  vast  ocean,  with  my  eyes, — 

A  vast  Eternity  ! 

Methought  I  heard  the  midnight  cry, 

Behold  the  Bridegroom  comes  ! 
Methought  I  was  called  to  the  bar, 

Where  souls  receive  their  dooms. 
The  world  was  at  an  end  to  me, 

As  if  it  all  did  burn  : 
But  lo  !  there  came  a  voice  from  heaven, 

Which  ordered  my  return. 

Lord,  I  returned  at  thy  command, 

What  wilt  thou  have  me  do  ? 
O  let  me  wholly  live  to  Thee, 

To  whom  my  life  I  owe  ! 
Fain  would  I  dedicate  to  Thee 

The  remnant  of  my  days  : 
Lord,  with  my  life  renew  my  heart, 

That  both  thy  name  may  praise. 


CHAP.  XLIII.]  LAKE  OF  COMO.  199 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 

Beauty  of  the  Lake  of  Como. — Como  to  Milan.— Leonardo  da  Vinci. 

How  strange  it  is  that  the  beauty  of  Italy  is  so  mingled  with  de- 
cay and  death  !  Between  Chiavenna  and  the  Lake  of  Como,  if 
you  stop  anywhere  by  night,  you  do  it  at  your  peril.  The 
malaria  fever  lies  in  ambush  where  the  mountain  streams  from 
the  Val  Bregaglia,  the  vale  of  Lira,  and  the  Valteline,  have 
slowly  intruded  their  marshy  shoals  in  plains  that  may  of  old 
have  been  covered  by  the  Lake  of  Como.  We  started  from 
Chiavenna,  through  this  desolate  region,  early  in  the  morning  by 
the  diligence,  and  in  a  few  hours  arrived  at  Colico  on  the  Lake, 
for  the  purpose  of  embarking  in  the  steamer,  that  daily  about 
noon  departs  for  Como.  You  bid  adieu  to  the  companionship  of 
mountains,  that  have  so  long  been  personal  friends,  with  great 
regret,  though  you  are  launched  upon  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
water-scenes  in  the  world,  and  one  of  the  grandest  also  ;  for  the 
mountains  that  invest  the  Lake  of  Como  give  it  an  air  of  sub- 
limity and  grandeur  as  impressive  as  its  beauty  is  attractive.  It 
is  about  forty  miles  in  length,  bordered  by  a  mountain  landscape 
of  perpetual  richness,  magnificence,  and  beauty.  But  let  no 
man,  who  has  leisure  to  explore  its  beauties,  cross  it  in  a  steamer. 
There  are  row-boats  and  sail-boats,  and  you  should  take  a  day 
or  two  with  a  dear  friend,  or  in  quiet  solitude,  to  run  into  its 
nooks,  its  enclosures,  to  land  at  its  picturesque  cliffs  and  recesses, 
and  to  watch  the  clouds,  the  rocks,  and  the  foliage  reflected  in  its 
bosom,  with  nothing  but  the  dipping  oar  to  break  its  silence,  or 
ruffle  its  smoothness.  There  is  great  enjoyment  in  such  a  sail, 
and  it  is  only  thus  that  you  can  become  acquainted  with  the  ge- 
nius loci,  the  soul  and  spirit  of  the  lake  and  the  landscape. 

At  the  town  of  Como  you  feel  that  you  are  in  Italy,  and  how 
vast  the  change  from  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  to  this  sunny 


200 


PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLIII. 


clime  !  We  were  in  haste  to  reach  Milan,  and  there  being  no- 
thing  to  detain  us  at  Como,  we  secured  the  only  two  remaining 
seats  in  the  diligence,  and  passed  on.  A  tree  fell  directly  across 
the  road  in  one  part  of  our  way,  and  falling  between  the  horses 
and  the  carriage,  stopped  us  completely,  so  that  the  laborers  were 
obliged  to  cut  through  the  tree  on  both  sides  of  the  road,  before 
we  could  be  extricated.  Besides  this,  we  were  delayed  by  an 
angry  altercation  between  our  conductor  and  an  English  coach- 
man, with  whom  he  got  into  a  squabble,  raising  the  whole  popu- 
lace, together  with  the  officers  of  justice,  in  a  little  village  on  the 
road.  Such  a  clatter  and  storm  of  fierce  words  and  furious  ges- 
ticulations would  have  been  rare  to  meet  anywhere  else  out  of 
Bedlam  ;  but  after  all,  we  arrived  safe,  though  late,  the  same 
evening  at  Milan. 

How  heavenly  the  enchantment  which,  from  the  Italian  side, 
distance  lends  to  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  !  Every  step  we 
departed  from  them  seemed  to  render  the  view  more  beautiful. 
They  began  to  appear  like  another  world  floating  in  mid-heaven ; 
it  was  as  if  we  were  coasting  a  neighboring  planet,  battlemented 
and  turreted  with  crags  of  diamond,  and  divided,  from  us  by  fields 
of  cerulean  space.  Meantime,  the  open  country,  through  which 
we  are  travelling,  is  full  of  luxuriance.  One  can  never  forget 
the  transcendent  glory  of  the  horizon,  with  the  evening  sun 
against  it.  It  is  the  picture  drawn  by  Milton,  but  reduplicated 
in  broad  space  in  the  heavens. 

"  Meanwhile  in  utmost  longitude,  where  heaven 
With  earth  and  ocean  meets,  the  setting  sun 
Slowly  descended  ;  and  with  right  aspect 
Against  the  eastern  gate  of  Paradise 
Levelled  his  evening  rays :  it  was  a  rock 
Of  alabaster,  piled  up  to  the  clouds, 
Conspicuous  far." 

The  day  shuts  upon  such  scenery,  just  as  the  thickening  tho- 
roughfares, the  passing  and  repassing  peasantry,  with  wains  and 
donkey- wagons,  and  the  glimmering  of  suburban  lights,  tell  you 
that  you  are  nearing  a  great  city.  At  length  you  drive  under 
its  proud  arches,  and  in  the  strange  romance  that  surrounds  you, 


CHAP.  xLiii.]  SIGHTS  IN  MILAN.  201 

on  first  being  set  down  at  dusk  among  new  ranges  of  buildings 
and  faces,  as  in  the  transitions  of  a  dream,  you  wait  for  the  ex- 
amination of  your  passports.  That  done,  you  drive  on  again 
through  streets,  now  deserted  and  murky,  and  now  gay  and 
crowded,  into  the  well  lighted  centres  of  evening  life  and  activity ; 
perhaps  you  are  whirled  past  the  blaze  of  the  great  theatre. 
What  creature  in  all  the  crowd  cares  for  you,  or  knows  of  your 
existence  ?  You  are  as  a  water-drop  falling  into  a  great  river. 
But  you  need  not  fear  •  you  are  to  be  carefully  sponged  up  and 
preserved  separate.  There  is  now  a  watch  over  you,  on  earth 
as  well  as  in  heaven. 

But  if  you  find  as  much  difficulty  in  getting  lodgings  as  we 
did,  you  will  begin  to  wish  you  had  stayed  away  from  Italy.  It 
was  past  midnight  before  we  found  any  other  shelter  than  the 
ante-room  of  the  post-house,  for  the  city  was  literally  crammed 
with  strangers  ;  but  we  did  at  length,  by  dint  of  runners,  discover 
a  fine  range  of  rooms  over  a  common  pot-house,  where  we  estab- 
lished ourselves  very  pleasantly.  A  fine  range  of  rooms  over  a 
common  pot-house,  and  established  pleasantly  !  What !  and  de- 
cently also  ?  Yes,  and  far  more  respectably  and  comfortably, 
than  just  at  that  time  we  could  have  been  at  any  of  the  crowded 
hotels  at  which  we  applied  in  vain  for  entrance.  The  juxta-posi- 
tion  of  the  extremes  of  refinement  and  of  low  life  is  no  uncom- 
mon thing  in  these  countries.  You  may  have  luxury  and  quiet, 
unsuspected  and  unenvied,  far  enough  away  from  palaces.  It 
was  amusing  to  us  to  see  the  goings  on  of  life -in  the  tavern  below 
our  suite  of  apartments.  The  common  people  seemed  to  enjoy 
themselves  as  freely  and  heartily,  as  if  they  were  eating  and 
drinking  in  an  atmosphere  of  genuine  liberty.  But  no  man  can 
forget  that  the  quiet  here  is  maintained  by  Austrian  bayonets. 

Milan  is  one  of  the  first  cities  in  Italy,  though  there  is  not  so 
much  of  curious  and  beautiful  sight-seeing  as  in  Florence  or  Na- 
ples, nor  so  fine  a  climate,  neither  a  volcano  with  Pompeii  at  its 
feet,  nor  a  splendid  bay  in  the  Mediterranean.  It  is  more  health- 
ful than  many  places  in  the  kingdom.  One  might  find  many 
things  of  the  deepest  interest  to  say  of  its  legendary  history,  but 
we  cannot  dwell  upon  this,  nor  upon  the  statistical  province  of 
the  guide  books.  I  had  visited  Milan  some  years  before,  but  had 


202  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLIII. 

entered  it  in  the  rain,  stayed  in  it  through  the  rain,  and  passed 
from  it  in  a  rain-storm  ;  circumstances  not  the  most  favorable 
for  seeing  a  fine  city.  Almost  the  only  thing  I  remembered 
was  its  white  glittering  Cathedral,  and  its  college  of  fine  old 
paintings,  the  College  of  Brera. 

Then  there  is  the  dim  shadowy  spectre  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci's 
great  painting  of  the  Last  Supper.  No  man  would  visit  it,  if  it 
were  not  for  what  it  had  been ;  it  is  like  visiting  the  house  in 
which  Shakspeare  lived,  or  the  room  in  which  Milton  died  ;  the 
occupant  is  gone.  In  looking  at  the  picture,  you  find  yourself 
gazing  not  so  much  at  what  is  there,  but  endeavoring  to  see  what 
is  not  there.  It  is  as  if  one  led  you  to  a  dim  room  filled  with 
apparitions,  some  ante-chamber  to  the  land  of  shades,  and  you 
should  vainly  strain  your  sight  for  some  known  image,  but  you 
only  see 


•  "  the  shadowy  forms 


That  seem  things  dead,  and  dead  again." 

Sixteen  years  did  the  Artist  labor  upon  this  painting  with  slow 
and  patient  toil,  the  fruit  of  intense  contemplation.  He  was  one 
of  the  most  universal  and  commanding  geniuses  of  Italy,  and 
doubtless  the  painting  was  in  all  respects  the  most  perfect  the 
world  ever  saw.  It  would  have  matched  the  Transfiguration  by 
Raphael,  had  it  been  painted  on  canvas,  in  undecaying  colors. 
But  one  half  century  and  a  little  more,  sufficed,  by  various  acci- 
dents and  exposure,  for  its  almost  complete  destruction  ;  and  by 
so  many  hands  has  it  been  retouched,  mended  and  painted  anew, 
that  it  would  probably  be  impossible  for  the  most  consummate 
judge  of  art  to  find  in  it  a  trace  of  the  pencil  of  the  original 
author. 


CHAP.  XMV.]  CATHEDRAL  OF  MILAN.  203 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

The  Cathedral  of  Milan.— The  Gospel  in  Italy. 

You  have  Nature  in  Switzerland  and  Art  in  Italy.  The  tran- 
sition is  great  from  cloud  and  snow-capped  mountains  and  thun- 
dering waterfalls,  to  the  ribbed  chapels  and  aisles  of  cathedrals, 
with  saints  and  angels  sculptured  upon  slender  spires,  and  the 
organ  solemnly  pealing.  The  Duomo  of  Milan  is  the  first  full 
introduction  for  the  stranger  from  the  North  into  the  Ecclesiastical 
splendors  of  a  past  artistic  world.  From  great  mountains  to  some 
gigantic  supernatural  structure,  like  the  colossal  Temple  of  Kar- 
nak  in  Thebes,  would  be  a  change  more  fitting  to  the  feelings  ; 
but  coming  from  the  cities  or  the  plains  of  Lombardy,  the  sight 
of  the  architectural  pile  at  Milan  is  truly  imposing  and  majestic. 

The  Cathedral  is  claimed  by  the  Milanese  as  the  eighth  won- 
der of  the  world.  It  rises  in  the  very  heart  of  the  city,  a  mag- 
nificent broad  pile  of  white  marble,  sculptured  and  entablatured 
on  the  face  and  sides  with  groups  of  statuary,  and  pinnacled  at 
every  angle  and  corner  with  lofty  and  delicate  spires,  which  bear 
upon  their  summits  each  a  majestic  statue  of  white  marble.  One 
hundred  and  sixteen  of  these  spires  are  visible  at  once,  and  the 
sculptured  forms  springing  from  their  slender  extremities  look  as 
if  suspended  in  the  air  by  magic.  The  great  tower  of  the  Cathe- 
dral is  an  almost  interminable  labyrinth  of  marble  statuary  and 
tracery  at  so  great  height,  and  so  light  and  delicate,  that  it  seems 
as  if  the  first  strong  wind  would  prostrate  the  whole,  or  scatter 
its  rocky  lace- work  like  leaves  in  autumn. 

If  you  can  conceive  of  a  river  of  liquid  white  marble  shot  into 
the  air  to  the  height  of  five  hundred  feet,  and  then  suddenly  petri- 
fied while  falling,  you  will  come  to  some  approximation  of  the 
beauty  and  rareness  of  this  magnificent  vision.  It  seems  like  a 
petrified  oriental  dream,  and  if  it  had  stood  in  Venice,  opposite 


204  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP,  xi.iv. 

St.  Mark's  Church  and  the  Doge's  Palace,  it  would  have  been 
more  in  keeping.  There  is  a  broad,  ample,  open  space  in  front 
of  it,  so  that  you  command  a  full  satisfactory  view  from  a  suffi- 
cient distance,  uninterrupted.  The  first  time  I  saw  it,  I  came 
upon  it  suddenly  and  unexpectedly,  on  turning  a  corner  in  the 
street,  as  if  it  had  sprung  from  the  earth  before  me  like  an  exha- 
lation, and  it  instantly  reminded  me,  with  its  multitudinous  white 
spires  and  images,  of  the  very  imaginative  reference  to  it  by 
Wordsworth  in  his  poem  on  an  eclipse  of  the  Sun.  This  is  one 
of  the  most  exquisitely  beautiful  compositions  in  all  the  volumes 
of  this  great  Poet,  and  the  measure  in  which  it  is  written  is 
most  melodious  and  perfect. 

But  Fancy,  with  the  speed  of  fire, 
Hath  fled  to  Milan's  loftiest  spire, 
And  there  alights,  mid  that  aerial  host 
Of  figures  human  and  divine, 
White  as  the  snows  of  Appenine 
Indurated  by  frost. 
ij 

Awe-stricken  she  beholds  the  array 

That  guards  the  Temple  night  and  day  ; 

Angels  she  sees,  that  might  from  heaven  have  flown  ; 

And  Virgin  Saints,  who  not  in  vain 

Have  striven  by  purity  to  gain 

The  beatific  crown. 

Far-stretching  files,  concentric  rings, 
Each  narrowing  above  each  ;— the  wings, 
The  uplifted  palms,  the  silent  marble  lips, 
The  starry  zone  of  sovereign  height, 
All  steeped  in  this  portentous  light, 
All  suffering  dim  eclipse. 

Look  now  abroad  at  evening  from  this  starry  zone,  over  the 
horizon  around  you.  The  sun  is  sinking  towards  the  Mediterra- 
nean, and  the  long  snowy  ranges  of  the  Alps  on  one  side,  and 
the  Appenines  on  the  other,  are  burning  with  almost  crimson  ra- 
diance. The  City  and  the  vast  luxuriant  plains  lie  beneath  you. 
Can  the  human  imagination  conceive  a  sight  more  glorious,  than 
those  distant  flashing  mountains,  ascending  pile  after  pile,  chain 
behind  chain,  whiter  and  more  brilliant  into  the  heavens  1  How 


CHAP.  XLIV.]  CATHEDRAL  OF  MILAN.  205 

immense  and  magnificent  the  ranges  commanded  from  this  centre  ! 
From  this  pinnacle  of  art  in  Italy  could  we  fly  "  with  the  speed 
of  fire"  to  that  of  nature  on  Mont  Blanc,  it  seems  as  if  the  change 
from  Time  into  Eternity  would  hardly  be  greater.  Yet  it  is  little 
more  than  three  days  since  we  were  in  the  midst  of  those  snows, 
that  in  this  getting  sun  blaze  like  the  walls  of  heaven.  And  now 
we  long  to  be  there  again.  The  sight  of  such  mountains  makes 
the  Cathedral  dwindle,  makes  you  feel  as  if,  while  Art  can  indeed 
be  beautiful,  there  is  nothing  but  Nature  that  can  be  truly  sublime. 

Now  we  turn  again  upon  the  marble  tower,  along  its  wilder- 
ness  of  spires  and  statues.  How  admirably  the  sculptures  are 
finished  !  Half  way  up  the  grand  spire,  you  have  the  best  view 
of  them,  more  than  four  thousand  in  all,  though  not  all  at  once 
visible.  The  immense  size  of  the  building,  and  its  innumerable 
recesses,  admit  of  their  distribution  in  such  a  way,  that  you  would 
not  dream  there  were  more  than  five  hundred  in  all. 

The  structure  is  indeed  a  master-piece  of  gorgeous  art,  and  in 
speaking  of  it  Wordsworth  observes  that  "  the  selection  and  ar- 
rangements of  the  figures  are  exquisitely  fitted  to  support  the  re- 
ligion of  the  country  in  the  imaginations  and  feelings  of  the  spec- 
tator." But  does  the  piety  of  the  people,  does  the  religion  of  the 
Cross,  as  well  as  the  religion  of  the  country,  increase  and 
strengthen  by  the  beauty  of  such  gorgeous  churches  ?  It  has 
been  remarked  that  the  age  of  great  architectural  splendor  in 
churches  is  also  an  age  of  decline  in  spiritual  worship.  The 
beauty  and  glory  of  the  form  are  far  more  considered  than  the 
indwelling  spirit.  Take  Wordsworth's  words  as  a  definition,  and 
call  the  Romish  Cathedral  a  series  of  figures  selected  and  arranged 
to  support  the  religion  of  the  country,  and  you  have  a  most  accu- 
rate description.  Whether  the  satire  were  intended,  or  the  writer 
was  unconscious  of  it,  makes  but  little  difference.  It  is  the  reli- 
gio  loci,  and  not  the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  for  which  these  great 
edifices  were  destined ;  it  is  the  half  paganized  system  of  super- 
stition, instead  of  the  gospel,  for  which  they  are  best  adapted. 

This  magnificent  pile,  when  Lanfranc  undertook  to  rebuild  it, 
was  styled  a  Church  for  the  Mother  of  God,  and  on  her  account 
the  people  brought  their  offerings.  Then  afterwards  did  the  fierce 
Galeazzo  Visconti  take  up  the  work  of  rebuilding,  in  order  to  ex- 


206  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP,  xnv 

piate  his  great  crimes.  Then  another  uneasy  sinner,  on  his  death- 
bed, paid,  for  the  same  purpose,  the  enormous  expiatory  gift  of 
280,000  crowns.  After  all  this,  Napoleon  took  up  the  work,  as  a 
matter  of  imperial  taste,  splendor,  and  ambition,  and  nearly  fin- 
ished it.  So,  though  it  has  been  centuries  in  building,  no  man 
can  be  said  to  have  put  a  stone  in  it  out  of  love ;  it  is  all  the  work 
not  of  Faith,  but  of  Superstition  ;  so  that,  instead  of  regarding 
these  Gothic  architectural  piles  as  the  consequence  or  proof  of  a 
sense  of  religion  in  the  Middle  Ages,  or  as  the  natural  growth  or 
expression  of  a  devout  spirit,  they  must  rather  be  considered  as 
the  price  paid  by  an  age  of  superstition,  for  a  vast  insurance  on 
the  world  to  come.  It  is  not  the  gospel  in  a  believing  heart,  but 
the  Law  acting  on  a  guilty  conscience,  that  has  reared  such  struc- 
tures. So,  though  some  of  them  are  a  great  material  Epic,  full 
of  beauty  and  grandeur,  yet  they  cannot  be  considered  as  a  true 
product  of  the  gospel,  or  of  a  simple  religious  spirit,  any  more 
than  the  Iliad  of  Homer  itself. 

If  they  were  religious  edifices,  then  ought  the  ceremonies  of 
religion  in  them  to  be  of  such  august  simplicity  and  grandeur,  so 
free  from  mere  human  artifice,  so  superior  to  all  superstition,  so 
shaped  and  imbued  by  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  that  every  man  on 
entering  might  feel  irresistibly  that  it  is  the  gospel.  But,  as 
Wordsworth  says,  it  is  the  religion  of  the  country.  You  are  made 
to  feel  that  while  there  is  a  great  deal  of  worship  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion,  there  is  very  little  religion  in  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic worship.  You  are  compelled  to  make  this  distinction,  by  obser- 
ving the  round  of  superstitious  ceremonies,  and  studying  the  crowds 
kneeling  before  the  multitudinous  altars,  pictures,  effigies  and 
images. 

As  to  the  effect  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  preached  simply,  plain- 
ly, boldly,  fervently,  amidst  all  this  power  of  superstition,  I  believe 
it  would  be  irresistible.  The  hearts  of  the  Italians  are  human 
hearts,  as  good  naturally,  as  any  other  hearts  in  the  world,  and 
perfectly  accessible.  Doubtless  God  will  yet  raise  up  native 
preachers  of  the  Cross  among  them,  who  will  be  as  successful  as 
Paul  ever  was  at  Rome.  He  whose  grace  kindles  the  fire  in  such 
hearts  can  keep  it  burning,  can  make  it  spread  like  the  summer 
lightning  from  cloud  to  cloud.  No  conclave  of  Inquisitors  can  stop 


CHAP.  XLIV.]          THE  WORK  OF  GOD  IN  ITALY.  207 

it,  no  persecution  can  put  it  out.  The  word  of  God  shall  "  yet 
have  free  course  and  be  glorified"  in  Italy,  and  when  it  does,  then 
will  that  Man  of  Sin,  that  Son  of  Perdition  (and  I  leave  it  with 
my  readers  according  to  their  own  pleasure  to  say  who  or  what 
he  is)  be  consumed  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord's  mouth,  and  destroyed 
by  the  brightness  of  his  coming. 


'    "•- 


208  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLV. 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

Silvio  Pellico,  and  the  Bible  in  Italy. 

MILAN  was  the  city  of  one  of  Silvio  Pellico's  prisons.  What  a 
touching  account  he  gives  of  the  power  of  the  Bible  over  him  ! 
The  time  is  hastening,  when  it  shall  no  longer  be  a  strange  book 
in  Italy,  nor  its  doctrines  hidden.  For  six  or  seven  days  Silvio  had 
been  in  a  state  of  doubt,  prayerlessness,  and  almost  desperation. 
Yet  he  sang  with  a  pretended  merriment,  and  sought  to  amuse 
himself  with  foolish  pleasantries.  "  My  Bible,"  he  says,  "  was 
covered  with  dust.  One  of  the  children  of  the  jailor  said  to  me 
one  day,  while  caressing  me,  '  Since  you  have  left  off  reading  in 
that  villain  of  a  book,  it  seems  to  me  you  are  not  so  sad  as  before.' ' 
Silvio  had  been  putting  on  a  forced  gaiety. 

"  It  seems  to  you  ?"  said  he. 

"  I  took  my  Bible,  brushed  away  the  dust  with  a  pocket-hand- 
kerchief, and  opening  it  at  hazard,  my  eyes  fell  upon  these  words. 
'  And  he  said  to  his  disciples,  It  is  impossible  but  that  offences 
will  come,  but  wo  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offence  cometh.  It 
were  better  for  him  that  a  millstone  were  cast  about  his  neck,  and 
he  thrown  into  the  sea,  than  that  he  should  offend  one  of  these  lit- 
tle ones.' 

"  Struck  with  meeting  these  words,  I  was  ashamed  that  this  lit- 
tle child  should  have  perceived,  by  the  dust  with  which  my  Bible 
was  covered,  that  I  read  it  no  more,  and  that  he  should  have  sup- 
posed that  I  had  become  more  sociable  and  pleasant  by  forgetting 
God.  I  was  completely  desolate  at  having  so  scandalized  him. 
You  little  rogue,  said  I,  with  a  caressing  reproof,  this  is  not  a  vil- 
lain book,  and  during  the  several  days  that  I  have  neglected  to 
read  in  it,  I  am  become  much  worse.  My  singing  that  you  have 
heard  is  only  a  force-put,  and  my  ill  humor,  which  I  try  to  drive 


CHAP.  XLV.]         SILVIO  PELLICO  AND  HIS  BIBLE.  209 

away  when  your  mother  lets  you  in  to  see  me,  all  comes  back 
when  I  am  alone. 

"  The  little  child  went  out,  and  I  experienced  a  degree  of  satis- 
faction  at  having  got  my  Bible  again  in  my  hands,  and  at  having 
confessed  that  without  it  I  had  grown  worse.  It  seemed  as  if  I 
were  making  some  reparation  to  a  generous  friend,  whom  I  had 
unjustly  offended,  and  that  I  was  again  reconciled  to  him. 

"  And  I  had  abandoned  thee,  O  my  God  !  cried  I,  and  I  was 
perverted  !  and  I  could  even  believe  that  the  infamous  laugh  of 
the  cynic  and  sceptic  was  suited  to  my  despairing  condition ! 

"  I  pronounced  these  words  with  indescribable  emotion.  I 
placed  my  Bible  on  a  chair,  I  kneeled  down  upon  the  earth  to  read 
it,  and  I,  who  weep  with  so  much  difficulty,  burst  into  tears. 

"  These  tears  were  a  thousand  times  sweeter  than  my  brutish 
joy.  I  saw  my  God  again  !  I  loved  him  !  I  repented  that  I  had 
so  insulted  him  in  degrading  myself,  and  I  promised  never  more 
to  be  separated  from  him,  never.  How  does  a  sincere  return  to 
the  path  of  duty  comfort  and  elevate  the  soul ! 

"  I  read  and  wept  and  lamented  during  more  than  an  hour,  and 
arose  full  of  confidence  in  the  thought  that  God  was  with  me,  and 
that  he  had  pardoned  my  delirium.  Then  my  misfortunes,  the 
torments  of  the  trial,  the  probability  of  the  torture,  appeared  to  me 
a  very  little  thing.  I  could  rejoice  in  suffering,  since  I  might  ful- 
fil a  sacred  duty,  which  was  to  obey  the  Saviour,  in  suffering  with 
resignation." 

There  are  still  hearts  like  Silvio  Pellico's  in  Italy,  and  when  the 
word  of  God  comes  to  this  people,  it  will  have  all  the  greater  power 
for  having  been  so  long  kept  from  them.  When  the  spirit  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Lord  kindles  the  fire,  it  will  spread  among  Italian 
hearts  like  a  flame  in  the  dry  grass  of  the  prairies.  Under  this 
fire  the  superstitions  of  Romanism  would  perish.  The  Idolatry 
of  forms  can  no  more  stand  against  the  burning  spirit  of  God's 
word,  than  the  seared  leaves  and  withered  branches  of  the  woods 
in  autumn  could  stand  before  a  forest  conflagration. 

Frank-hearted  Silvio  Pellico  !  How  many  a  man  has  let  the 
dust  grow  thick  upon  his  Bible,  not  in  prison  merely,  but  even  his 
family  Bible,  even  with  dear  children  around  him,  and  never  con- 
fessed his  sin,  never  gone  back  with  tears  of  contrition  to  that  Holy 

PART  n.  15 


210  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLV. 


Book,  nor  taught  it  in  his  household,  nor  had  the  light  of  Truth  Di- 
vine, the  light  from  Heaven  shining  on  it !  How  like  a  dungeon 
with  false  and  foul  thoughts,  must  every  heart  be,  out  of  which 
God  and  the  dear  light  of  his  word  are  excluded  !  Yea,  though 
there  may  be  laughter  there,  it  is  like  poor  Silvio's  false  and 
forced  despairing  merriment,  it  is  like  the  crackling  of  thorns  un- 
der a  pot.  Heavy  laws  are  upon  such  a  man,  and  when  friends 
depart,  and  he  sees  himself  in  prison,  sees  how  he  is  in  prison, 
even  though  he  walks  in  the  open  air,  then  there  is  desolation  in- 
deed. 

"If  there  be  one  who  need  bemoan 
His  kindred  laid  in  earth, 
The  household  hearts  that  were  his  own, 
It  is  the  man  of  mirth." 


CHAP.  XLVI.]  SWISS  FREEDOM.  211 


CHAPTER  XLVI. 

The  Farewell. — Swiss  character  and  freedom. 

WE  are  no  longer  under  the  Shadow  of  the  Jungfrau,  and  there- 
fore it  is  high  time  that  I  close  this  second  fasciculus  of  the 
leaves  of  our  pilgrimage.  I  might  have  extended  it  into  the 
Cottian  Alps,  amidst  the  interesting  Churches  of  the  Waldenses, 
but  such  a  ramble  ought  not  to  come  at  the  end  of  a  volume. 
We  will  stop  at  Milan,  in  full  sight  of  .the  glorious  Alps,  among 
which  we  have  been  wandering.  From  a  splendid  spire  in  the 
midst  of  a  region  of  despotism,  we  are  gazing  across  upon  the 
mountain  shrines  of  liberty.  My  readers  will  listen  with  pleas- 
ure to  the  parting  reflections  of  a  young  and  gifted  English  lady 
in  regard  to  the  Swiss  character,  the  Swiss  freedom,  and  in  spite 
of  all  disastrous  omens,  the  hopes  of  Switzerland,  and  of  the 
hearty  friends  of  that  glorious  country,  for  future,  settled,  perma- 
nent, well-ordered  LIBERTY. 

"  You  are  not  to  suppose,"  says  Miss  Lamont,  in  her  interest- 
ing volume  of  letters  on  France  and  Switzerland,  "  that  I  have 
taken  up  my  opinions  about  the  Swiss  from  occasional  gleanings 
by  the  eye  and  ear,  as  I  went  along.  I  got  a  history  of  Switzer- 
land to  read,  since  I  have  been  here ;  not,  indeed,  so  extended  a 
history  as  I  should  like  on  such  a  subject,  yet  it  still  helped  me  a 
little.  At  first,  I  did  not  like  it  much — it  seemed  to  me  nothing 
better  than  war  after  war  of  tribes  of  red  Indians.  It  improved 
towards  the  last,  yet  still  was  but  a  detail  of  battles,  year  after 
year,  of  the  people  against  the  nobles ;  this  can  only  interest 
when  the  characters  of  individual  leaders  are  portrayed — it  does 
not  do  so  in  masses.  However,  I  was  glad  to  have,  even  from 
that  history,  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in  me  respecting  the 
obstinate  prowess  of  the  Swiss,  and  their  honest  love  of  indepen- 
dence. And,  had  I  wanted  anything  to  confirm  me  in  the  love 


212  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLVI. 

of  freedom  which,  untaught  by  any  one,  has  become  an  essential 
portion  of  my  mind,  I  should  have  found  it  in  my  Swiss  book,  and 
my  Swiss  journey.  Not  that  there  is  here  a  more  advanced 
social  state  than  in  any  other  country  of  Europe,  nor  a  greater 
progress  in  science,  the  arts,  and  education ;  but  there  is  what  is 
a  hundred-fold  better — there  is  a  general  diffusion  of  substantial 
happiness,  so  to  speak.  After  all,  is  it  not  disheartening  to  look 
over  the  map  of  Europe,  and  behold  only  this  one  spot  on  which 
liberty  is  to  be  found  ?  And  what,  though  it  was  brought  forth 
amidst  the  contests  of  barbarian  hordes,  and  baptized,  re-baptized, 
and  baptized  again  on  battle-fields  reeking  with  blood,  it  is  liberty; 
and  if  the  Swiss  be  but  true  to  themselves,  and  permit  this  child 
of  theirs  to  grow  to  its  full  stature,  it  may  become  a  guide  to  the 
nations !  Yet,  disheartening  as  it  is,  to  see  but  one  free  land,  it 
is  more  so  to  reflect  that  ages  must  roll  on  before  others  can  be 
free ;  for  the  more  we  know  of  the  state  of  Europe,  it  becomes 
the  more  evident  that  the  chains  which  have  been  centuries  in 
forming,  it  will  take  centuries  to  break  effectually.  Look  at  Ger- 
many, bound  down  by  emperor,  king,  prince,  duke,  and  noble  of 
every  kind,  each  bond  so  weak  in  itself,  yet  all  so  impossible  to 
rend  !  Look  at  Russia,  where  the  barbaric  forms  of  the  undisguis- 
ed despotisms  of  the  East  are  adding  to  themselves  the  astuteness 
of  modern  tyrannies.  Look  at  England,  where  the  despotism  of 
castes,  a  social  despotism  exists,  of  even  a  worse  sort  than  that  of 
a  tyrannical  monarch ;  and  in  France,  where  the  contending  ele- 
ments of  social  corruption  raised  so  terrific  a  storm,  there  is  little 
hope  of  the  speedy  establishment  of  liberty.  Let  the  Swiss  bless 
their  mountains,  crags,  and  torrents,  which,  making  their  men 
hardy  in  body,  made  them  incapable  of  being  trodden  into  slaves ; 
made  them  able  to  renew  the  battle  from  year  to  year,  from  age 
to  age,  until  all  has  been  gained!  and,  now,  let  them  dread  the 
love  of  gain  ;  they  could  be  courageous  and  virtuous,  being  poor; 
I  distrust  them  if  they  shall  become  rich !  Here  is  declamation 
enough,  you  will  say ;  but  I  know  you  hope  with  me,  that  now 
that  they  have  gained  all  they  desired,  they  will  proceed  in 
the  march  of  improvement.  They  have  bought  their  freedom  by 
six  hundred  years  of  contest  and  bloodshed  (not  too  high  a  price 
for  what  is  immortal  worth),  and  now  they  have  to  do  something 


CHAP.  XLVI.]  SWISS  FREEDOM.  213 

more  difficult  than  what  they  have  done,  they  have  to  use  their 
freedom  wisely.  They  have  to  make  it  the  guide,  the  aid,  to 
piety,  humanity,  liberality,  knowledge ;  if  wealth — if  power,  be 
what  it  inspire  them  to  seek,  their  freedom  will  slide  from  their 
hold,  when  the  nations  now  so  far  behind  them  have  attained  it." 

But  more  than  all  this,  what  Switzerland  needs  to  make  the 
country  a  centre  of  light  and  hope  in  all  Europe,  is  true  Re- 
ligious Liberty.  God  grant  there  may  be  no  more  conflicts  of 
armed  men  about  religion.  There  can  be  none,  when  the  question 
of  a  man's  creed  and  clergyman  is  once  totally  separated  from 
the  question  of  his  civil  and  political  obligations  and  duties,  and 
made  the  business  solely  between  his  conscience  and  his  God. 
The  choice  of  one's  church  is  a  civil  right,  in  which  all  that  any 
government  has  to  do,  is  to  protect  the  subject  in  its  unmolested 
enjoyment.  It  is  also  a  religious  obligation,  but  an  obligation  to- 
wards God,  with  which  no  government  on  earth  has  any  right  to 
interfere.  Every  man  has  a  right  to  the  protection  of  the  civil 
government  in  the  performance  of  his  religious  duties  ;  no  govern- 
ment has  any  right  to  prescribe  or  enforce  those  duties.  When 
the  State  attempts  to  stand  in  the  place  of  God,  and  to  legislate 
for  the  church,  it  becomes  a  despotism  ;  when  the  church  attempts 
to  use  the  state  for  the  enforcement  of  its  own  edicts,  and  the  sup- 
port of  its  establishments,  it  also  becomes  a  despotism  ;  but  where 
the  spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  LIBERTY. 

Farewell,  now,  to  Alpine  nature,  that  world  of  such  glorious 
images  and  thoughts !  He  who  has  visited  it  with  a  wakeful 
soul,  and  felt  the  steadfast  eye  of  its  great  mountains  upon  him, 
whether  beneath  the  glittering  sun,  or  the  mild  melancholy  moon, 
whether  at  day-dawn  or  in  the  flush  of  sunset,  and  seen  the  rush 
of  its  white  Avalanches,  and  heard  their  thunder,  and  the  billows 
of  its  glaciers,  with  the  invulnerable  life  and  far-ofF  roar  and  fury 
of  their  cataracts,  and  the  living  flowers  that  enamel  the  valleys 
and  skirt  the  eternal  frosts,  has  a  book  of  glory  in  his  heart, 
where,  in  the  words  of  Dante,  Memory  mocks  the  toil  of  genius, 
a  book  which  no  man  can  write,  a  book  on  which  the  light  from 
Heaven  is  shining,  and  which  he  will  carry  with  him  even  to  his 
grave.  For  him  "  Remembrance,  like  a  Sovereign  Prince,  main- 


214  PILGRIM  OF  THE  JUNGFRAU.  [CHAP.  XLVI. 

tains  a  stately  gallery,"  and  there  are,  within  the  silent  chambers 
of  his  soul,  treasures 

"  More  precious  far, 
Than  that  accumulated  store  of  Gold 
And  orient  gems,  which,  for  a  day  of  need, 
The  Sultan  hides  within  ancestral  tombs." 

In  gathering  the  treasures  and  receiving  the  suggestions  of  na- 
ture, we  need,  more  than  all  things  else,  a  prayerful,  kind,  and 
open  heart.  Mountains,  to  such  an  one,  are  as  the  stepping- 
places  of  angels ;  the  forms  and  influences  that  inhabit  them  seem 
supernatural. 

"  Less  than  divine  command  they  spurn ; 
But  this  we  from  the  mountains  learn, 
And  this  the  valleys  show, 
That  never  will  they  deign  to  hold 
Communion  where  the  heart  is  cold 
To  human  weal  and  wo. 

The  man  of  abject  soul  in  vain 
Shall  walk  the  Marathonian  plain, 
Or  thread  the  shadowy  gloom, 
That  still  invests  the  guardian  pass 
Where  stood  sublime  Leonidas 
Devoted  to  the  tomb." 


THE    END. 


YB  26126 


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